The Walt Disney Company has been hit with a serious complaint filed with the US Equal Employment Opportunities Commission (EEOC) regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) implementation and bias in their hiring, promotions, and other employment practices. The complaint, filed by the America First Legal Foundation, presents both public and internal documents to evidence Disney’s open defiance of federal law and seeks action from the government.
(L-R): Kingo (Kumail Nanjiani), Makkari (Lauren Ridloff), Gilgamesh (Don Lee), Thena (Angelina Jolie), Ikaris (Richard Madden), Ajak (Salma Hayek), Sersi (Gemma Chan), Sprite (Lia McHugh), Phastos (Brian Tyree Henry) and Druig (Barry Keoghan) in Marvel Studios’ ETERNALS. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Some of you may have seen the chart on hiring practices regarding “underrepresented groups” of people based on their races, national origins, and sexual identification that was recently made prominent on X by Elon Musk (even though the document had been around at Disney since 2020) but that plus many internal documents including some leaked Q&A’s from within the Disney company clearly present a pattern of deliberate bias in hiring, promoting, and even in giving grants of up to $25,000 to people on these biased bases, thus depriving those NOT in the selected groups—mainly white straight males—from consideration, compensation, and career advancement.
ABC Entertainment Inclusion Standards
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The examples presented in the complaint are pretty all-encompassing. The law in question is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was, of course, designed to overcome racial bigotry and bias that such notable figures as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fought so bravely against. That this law, which wrote absolute fairness and penalties for violating it, into America’s legal code should now be violated by The Walt Disney Company so blatantly is beyond ironic.
“It is sad and tragic that a company whose name was once synonymous with wholesome and charming childhood fantasies is now dedicated to spreading divisive bigotry. We urge Disney to cease and desist its unlawful and destructive conduct at once,” said Stephen Miller, president of America First Legal.
Falcon/Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) in Marvel Studios’ THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. ©Marvel Studios 2021. All Rights Reserved.
Can a company dedicate itself to general aims of diversity and inclusion? Sure they can. But in Disney’s case they specifically set quotas and mandate preferences that go well beyond the legal. Aside from various numerical standards and quotas, they even tell people some pretty interesting things about who they should consider for hiring that truly continue the “quota-filling is more important than talent/experience” that we saw in the latest installment of the “D-Files” from Film Threat about such practices at Disney Animation, but these internal rules are company-wide.
In one of the Disney documents presented to the EEOC as evidence, they ask “What do we mean by ‘inclusive hiring and employment practices’?”
Some of the official Disney answers are telling:
Challenging preconceived assumptions about what indicators are effective at predicting whether someone will or will not succeed at a particular role (e.g. assuming that someone who has a positive reference from a mutual connection will be successful on your show.)
And:
Reconsidering what qualities and experiences render someone qualified for a role (e.g. assuming that someone who has worked with you on your prior shows is the most qualified.)
Halle Bailey as Ariel in Disney’s live-action THE LITTLE MERMAID. Photo courtesy of Disney. © 2023 Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
In other words, the fact that people come highly qualified, recommended, or even known to you as a manager or supervisor as being well-qualified to do a great job is SECONDARY or IRRELEVANT compared to their racial/sexual identity? That is the very behavior in hiring that the Civil Rights Act was written and passed into law to prevent!
And it is worth noting that in a business where people work with people they know or who are vouched for by people they know and trust, the idea that someone with less experience, less ability, and less reliability should be preferred over those with more solely because they fit a quota and tick the right boxes that are irrelevant to their ability to do the job well, on time, and with expertise not only is illegal and crazy from a business point of view, it certainly explains why Disney has had so many instances of over-budget, inefficient, and low quality productions in recent years.
Reva (Moses Ingram) in Lucasfilm’s OBI-WAN KENOBI, exclusively on Disney+. © 2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & ™. All Rights Reserved.
And who are, per Disney documents, those to be given preferential treatment and quota hiring in violation of Federal law? “Women, AAPI, Black/AA, Indigenous/Native, Hispanic/Latinx/Latine, MENA, SWANA, LGBTQIA+, Disability Identifying, Religiously Marginalized.” And folks, if some of those abbreviations are new or strange to you, join the club.
It remains to be seen how the EEOC will respond to the complaint, but surely this puts Disney’s prejudices on display in a way that even Elon’s partial revelation could not. The government has no choice but to take this seriously and investigate or explain, in light of all the evidence presented by America First Legal, why they will not.
Aryan Simhadri as Grover, Leah Jeffries as Annabeth Chase, and Walker Scobell as Percy Jackson in PERCY JACKSON & THE OLYMPIANS – “Episode 107” (Disney/David Bukach)
Disney’s legal and public relations cavalcade of disaster thus continues to unfold, all at a time when current and longstanding Management that put these practices into effect are asking investors, families, and customers to just trust them, back them, and ignore what CEO Bob Iger called in a recent video “distractions we just don’t need right now.”
Thus the Wiz of Dis asks us to pay no attention to the legal, financial, and ethical exposures now emerging from behind that curtain over there—one they’ve managed to keep closed for decades but that is now unveiling some less than wizardly parts of the magic indeed.
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