DOJ Ends ‘DEI’ Lawsuits Against Fire, Police Departments
Attorney General Pam Bondi has officially ended a series of federal lawsuits initiated by the Biden administration against police and fire departments over their use of merit-based hiring practices.
During the Biden presidency, the DOJ’s Office of Civil Rights took legal action against local emergency services, accusing them of prioritizing merit over racial considerations in their hiring decisions, according to a Thursday report from Just the News.
“Despite no evidence of intentional discrimination – only statistical disparities – the prior administration branded the aptitude tests at issue in these cases as discriminatory in an effort to advance a DEI agenda,” the DOJ explained in a press release.
“And it sought to coerce cities into conducting DEI-based hiring in response and spending millions of dollars in taxpayer funds for payouts to previous applicants who had scored lower on the tests, regardless of qualifications,” the statement continued.
Former President Donald Trump had previously issued executive orders to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies from the federal government, and Bondi’s latest action reinforces the administration’s broader push to dismantle DEI-related programs.
Bondi’s office argued that DEI hiring practices jeopardize public safety and called the dismissal of these lawsuits “an early step toward eradicating illegal DEI preferences across the government and in the private sector.”
“American communities deserve firefighters and police officers to be chosen for their skill and dedication to public safety – not to meet DEI quotas,” Bondi said in a statement.
The consent decrees proposed under the prior administration acknowledged that the departments evaluated applicants using neutral standards, such as credit checks, written exams, and physical fitness assessments. However, Fox News reported that White male applicants tended to achieve better results on these assessments.
As an example, a complaint filed in October targeted the City of Durham, North Carolina, accusing it of “unintentional” discrimination against Black applicants after data showed Black candidates failed to meet the required 70% passing score on the written exam at higher rates than White candidates. As a corrective measure, the lawsuit sought to scrap the neutral written test and instead provide “back pay and/or preferential hiring” to Black applicants who were unsuccessful due to their test scores. The proposed financial remedy was around $980,000.
Another case, brought against the Maryland State Police in October 2024, proposed removing the agency’s existing selection process—specifically a written test requiring a minimum score of 70% and a physical fitness evaluation involving push-ups, sit-ups, flexibility reach, trigger pull, and a 1.5-mile run. Fox also reported on this case.
“Because Black applicants passed the test less often than White applicants and because women passed the physical test less often than men, the Civil Rights Division concluded that Maryland was illegally discriminating against Black applicants and women,” according to case filings.
The proposed resolution recommended eliminating those testing criteria and paying out $2.75 million in compensation to Black applicants who were not hired due to written test scores and to female applicants who failed the physical fitness standards. Similar lawsuits were also filed against South Bend, Indiana, and Cobb County, Georgia, Fox further noted.
In a separate and unexpected announcement on Thursday, Bondi also disclosed that the FBI’s New York field office had been withholding critical documents related to Jeffrey Epstein.
Bondi sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel demanding immediate cooperation and a thorough internal investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Epstein case.
This demand follows earlier reports suggesting the FBI may have secretly destroyed Epstein-related records, fueling further suspicions of government misconduct and potential cover-ups.
In her letter, Bondi stated that her office had only received a limited selection of the documents it had requested concerning Epstein’s criminal network.
“I repeatedly questioned whether this was the full set of documents responsive to my request and was repeatedly assured by the FBI that we had received the full set of documents,” Bondi wrote. “Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein.”
She ended the letter with a firm directive: “By 8:00 a.m. tomorrow, February 28, the FBI will deliver the full and complete Epstein files to my office, including all records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients.”