By Staff
UPDATE:
Caesars Entertainment has removed all references to DEI quota goals from its website since we posted this article one week ago (Feb 3, 2025). They’ve also removed the “CEO Pledge.” Congratulations to every merit based hire moving forward! We’ll continue to monitor and report.
Feb 3, 2025 Panama City Beach, FL – “We will forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based,” President Trump declared during his inauguration speech on January 20th, 2025. The following day, he took decisive action by signing an executive order to abolish diversity, equity, and inclusion programs (DEI) within the federal government.
An excerpt from the order, posted on whitehouse.gov, stated, “Roughly 60 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, key institutions in American society—including the Federal Government, major corporations, financial institutions, the medical industry, large commercial airlines, law enforcement agencies, and institutions of higher education—have adopted and actively implement harmful race- and sex-based preferences under the pretense of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI) or ‘diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility’ (DEIA), which can violate the civil rights laws of this Nation.”
The document further asserts, “The Federal Government is responsible for enforcing our civil rights laws. This order aims to ensure compliance by eliminating illegal preferences and discrimination.”
In a “fact sheet” released the following day, President Trump instructed government departments and agencies to “take strong action to end private sector DEI discrimination, including civil compliance investigations.”
“In the private sector,” the fact sheet noted, “many corporations and universities utilize DEI as a justification for biased and unlawful employment practices and illegal admissions preferences, overlooking the reality that DEI’s foundational rhetoric and concepts promote intergroup hostility and authoritarianism.”
A recent article on Reuters raised the question of the legality of DEI initiatives. Daniel Wiessner explained, “It depends on what form they take. They can be illegal, especially if an employer establishes explicit quotas or indicates a preference for specific groups, such as women or people of color. However, many corporate DEI initiatives do not set numerical targets or explicitly refer to protected traits like race and sex.”
Caesars Entertainment, however, appears to have explicitly adopted such measures.
On its website, a menu header labeled “DIVERSITY” directs visitors to a page outlining the company’s “quota” goals. A banner states, “More recently, we set new aggressive targets to increase the representation of women and people of color in leadership roles on a path to achieve full gender and racial parity by 2025.”
“Fifty percent of management roles will be held by women within both mid-level and senior leadership populations. Fifty percent of leadership roles will be held by people of color (POC). We also commit to increasing the representation of POC in senior leadership by 50%.”
Additional initiatives from the company include “bias education,” which explains, “Experts tell us that we all have unconscious biases—that is human nature. Unconscious bias education enables individuals to recognize, acknowledge, and minimize potential blind spots they may not have previously been aware of. We are committed to rolling out and/or expanding unconscious bias education within our companies in ways that best fit our specific culture and business. By helping our employees identify and address these blind spots, we aim to foster more open and honest conversations. Additionally, we will make non-proprietary unconscious bias education modules available to others free of charge.”
However, despite its focus on educating employees about bias, Caesars Entertainment’s DEI “quota” goals have led to the very discrimination they seek to combat. It is estimated that thousands of qualified individuals were disadvantaged in hiring and promotion opportunities based on their gender or skin color, revealing a significant “blind spot” in the company’s approach.
