Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Lawsuit challenges latest anti-DEI executive order, (Apr 21, 2026)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The suit, filed by a coalition of groups representing nonprofits, university professors, and federal contractors and subcontractors, challenges E.O. 14398, issued on March 26, 2026.

Yesterday, a coalition of nonprofits, university professors, and federal contractors and subcontractors filed a suit challenging E.O. 14398, the newest Presidential directive targeting initiatives relating to DEI. They allege that the order—which they contend threatens government contractors and subcontractors with the loss of federal contracts, permanent blacklisting, and civil and criminal prosecution for failing to acquiesce to the administration’s unlawful demands—violates the First Amendment.

“For centuries, minority-owned businesses have faced discrimination,” said Wendell R. Stemley, National President of the National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC). “This executive order is aimed at undermining the very policies that work to address that discrimination and move the nation toward fairness and inclusion.”

Stamping out differences. Indeed, the lawsuit alleges that “to the Trump-Vance Administration, even acknowledging our differences is a threat. Rather than celebrating diversity and promoting inclusion, the Administration has pursued a relentless and reactionary campaign towards sameness, and towards defining white experience as the paradigm, seeking to stamp out any differences between people and experiences.”

“In doing so,” they allege, “the Administration has villainized the very concepts of equity, inclusion, and diversity, and rebranded the acronym ‘DEI’ into something taboo.”

Coalition of plaintiffs. The suit was filed by the National Association of Diversity Officers of Higher Education (NADOHE); American Association of University Professors (AAUP); United Academics of Maryland-University of Maryland, College Park (UAM-UMD); National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC); and the NAMC, District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia Chapter (NAMC-DMV). They are represented by Democracy Forward. NAMC and NAMC-DV are also represented by the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund (MBELDEF).

“At its core, the executive order is a gag rule dressed up as a contract clause. It demands minority-owned businesses trade their First Amendment right to speak about race and discrimination for fair access to federal contracts,” said Sarah von der Lippe, Pro Bono Chief Counsel of the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund. “The Constitution does not permit that trade.”

In addition to claims under the First Amendment, the complaint states that the False Claims Act provision of the order is ultra vires. The plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief.

“This order is unlawful and would have disastrous consequences for workers doing the public’s business throughout the country,” says Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, “but also for the millions of people who rely on the work and services contractors, subcontractors, their employees, and partners provide.”

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland; the case is No. 8:26-cv-01532.

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