Right-wing lawyers target diversity programs at company behind global computer outage

A right-wing legal foundation associated with Stephen Miller is suing Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity firm behind the software update that crashed millions of computers worldwide, over alleged employment practices that discriminate against white men.

America First Legal filed a civil rights complaint Wednesday with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for allegedly sidelining white male employees in favor of women and minorities for positions in coding, programming and other areas due to considerations for diversity, equity and inclusion.

“Crowdstrike’s DEI leader specifically referenced efforts to use race as a basis for advancement in employment," said Dan Epstein, vice president of America First Legal. "Such a statement, in combination with Crowdstrike’s demonstrated intent to use racial balancing in hiring as well as its own public financial disclosures emphasizing its values in favor of racial discrimination over the true diversity of thought and opinion, creates a substantial likelihood of unlawful activity."

The suit complains that the firm considers race, gender and ethnicity when evaluating nominees to its board of directors and has nine employee resource groups to provide training on diversity topics and provide networking opportunities, but does not offer such resources specifically aimed at men or white employees.

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"The promotion of DEI practices in the workplace is a direct violation of Civil Rights law and AFL will do everything in its power to stop these discriminatory actions," the suit alleges.

Crowdstrike has blamed the outage, which crashed about 8.5 million computers globally, on a bug in a sensor used to counter malicious software and hackers that blocked "problematic content data" from being detected, which then caused the Windows operating system to crash, but the lawsuit suggests that the company's hiring practices may be to blame.

"The company's self-described, ongoing employment practices are patently unlawful, deeply harmful, and immoral," America First Legal said. "Decades of case law hold that — no matter how well-intentioned — policies that seek to impose racial balancing are prohibited."