Virginia police officers seen walking outside the state capitol building in Richmond, Virginia. (Photo by Roberto SCHMIDT / AFP) (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
In AFL's complaint, the legal watchdog accuses the City of Richmond of creating a "government-wide pattern or practice of discrimination" by embedding racial equity in every department. The complaint cites hiring materials embedded with discriminatory themes, mandatory DEI training, Richmond's Equity Agenda, and the capital city's establishment of an Office of Equity and Inclusion, which AFL claims to have an aim to empower "only certain people and communities wholly based on race," rather than merit.
Richmond’s fiscal year budgets reportedly measured department performance by the percentage of employees completing "equity training," with a stated goal of 100% participation. Meanwhile, AFL also cited Richmond's "Climate Equity Action Plan" and "Racial Equity and Environmental Justice (REEJ) program," which the group accuses of funneling resources to only certain racial groups.
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The civil rights complaints against Alexandria and Arlington include similar allegations to those levied against Richmond.
A police officer blocks an intersection in Alexandria, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Arlington, meanwhile, is accused of establishing an "Affirmative Action Plan," which AFL says includes "underutilization goals" based on race for specific job groups. These goals include increasing minority representation in the "Senior Administrators" job group from 35.23% to 45%, and minority representation in "Police Officers" from 27.38% to 38%, according to AFL's complaint.
To prove the real-life consequences of these cities' policies, AFL's complaint against Arlington pointed to an incident at a local public school from last year.
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A polling location in Arlington, Virginia. (Valerie Plesch/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"In September 2024, a male sex offender was permitted to use the girls’ locker room at Washington Liberty High School in Arlington County for months because he claimed to be transgender—a direct result of the County’s policy allowing individuals to use facilities based on their claimed ‘gender identity.’ The individual ultimately exposed his genitals to a 9-year-old girl," AFL's complaint to the Department of Justice chronicles. "This incident demonstrates how Arlington County’s race- and sex-conscious policies not only violate federal civil rights law but also compromise student safety."
Last month, AFL reached a settlement with the City of Philadelphia that began in 2019 over alleged race- and sex-based quotas and "discriminatory" union-membership requirements in public contracting. Under the settlement, the City of Philadelphia agreed to rewrite its "Project Labor Agreements," which AFL said penalized city contractors that refused to abide by its DEI mandates. Under the settlement, the city was compelled to make previous workforce diversity goals "strictly aspirational" and end "quotas or mandatory minimums."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-virginia-cities-hot-seat-as-trump-aligned-group-demands-doj-probe-dei-mandates