Attorney General Andrew Bailey answers reporters’ questions on Jan. 13 in the Missouri Capitol (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey may have a bad track record in court, but he’s winning anyway. This is especially true of his crusade to make the workforce and higher education less diverse.
He’s had success using losing lawsuits, investigations that do nothing but burn Missouri taxpayer dollars and threatening letters that misstate the law.
On the day that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled traditional affirmative action programs in higher education unconstitutional, Bailey sent threatening letters to Missouri universities and municipalities in which he overstated what the ruling did and implied that all efforts at fostering diversity and inclusion in Missouri must be halted.
In April, Bailey excoriated the Business Roundtable for having “racist DEI initiatives.” He wrote he would fight “woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination.” In an impressive act of government “jawboning” that Bailey has claimed to oppose in other contexts, he threatened that such policies “risk exposing your organizations to substantial liability.”
Bailey is suing IBM, alleging the company did too much to recruit non-white and female hires.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts (the “DEI” much maligned by the far-right) help companies hire and retain qualified people who they wouldn’t easily find through traditional white male networks. Many studies and companies have explained that diversity is good for profits and innovation, and that you don’t get a diverse workforce without making an effort to recruit one.
Bailey’s court filings come shockingly close to outright stating his contrary premise: women and non-white people are inherently inferior so any increase in their representation is bad.
IBM argued that Bailey hasn’t pleaded that any Missouri employee or job applicant was discriminated against. Indeed, this looks like Bailey preening for the national anti-diversity warriors rather than addressing a Missouri problem.
Though you wouldn’t know it from listening to Bailey, diversity is still a permissible goal under Supreme Court precedent. And it is typical for companies to reward executives for advancing corporate goals.
But the IBM lawsuit looks like another one where Bailey could win with a loser of a case. IBM has long been known for being a model for inclusive policies and a great place to work. IBM’s diversity council began in the ‘90s. It has touted hiring a disabled employee in 1914. But this year it ended most of its diversity efforts. We’ll see whether IBM continues to fight back against Bailey.
Whatever happens, say goodbye to IBM and similarly situated companies employing more people here. Bailey has made it clear that employers should expect legal harassment for exercising their rights to association and free speech in Missouri.
Bailey has also sued Starbucks. His brief argues that the Starbucks workforce has become “more female and less white” — and that this is unacceptable.
Starbucks appears to be defending the values that the company professes. The company is also likely aware that if it were to abandon its reasonable efforts to have a workforce more representative of its customer base, it could lead to a boycott and a massive stock hit like Target experienced.
Shareholders have realized that reversing inclusive policies is bad for business. Shareholders voted down anti-diversity proposals overwhelmingly this proxy season.
The market has spoken. So Bailey’s latest ploy is to punish free speech in the market.
Bailey filed lawsuits against two firms that give shareholders advice on how to vote. He claims that they have engaged in “deceptive practices” by recommending inclusive policies. This is one of his many attempts to weaponize the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which was meant to protect Missourians from actual fraud.
But frivolous lawsuits against out-of-state corporations are not the only way to light taxpayer dollars on fire.
Bailey can burn up twice the Missouri tax dollars by having Missouri wage legal warfare against itself. See for example, Bailey’s investigation of the Hazelwood School District over an off-campus fight between students of different races, the three year lawsuit against the Springfield School District over demands to search thousands of documents for a list of possibly DEI-related terms that the District estimated would cost $170,000, or his new investigation of the City of Columbia over whether it might be trying to advance diversity and equity.
How does a successful, powerful white man come to have such resentment towards women and people of color for the modest gains we have made that he treats it as Missouri’s biggest problem? How does someone once known as a “reasonable and smart attorney” become a “warrior in the culture wars”? What could compel him to regularly use dehumanizing language about diversity proponents who merely want more people to have opportunities?
Did he get radicalized online? Bailey has filed a surprising number of lawsuits based on tweeted statements or videos.
His IBM lawsuit cites a video circulated online. He sued Media Matters in response to an Elon Musk tweet (that lawsuit was thrown out as I predicted, but Media Matters had to cut staff due to the costs of Bailey and Musk lawsuits, so that’s another extra-legal win for Bailey). Bailey sued Planned Parenthood over a Project Veritas video, without bothering to get the unedited tape.
Another possibility is that this is how Republicans feel they need to make a name and impress Trump and MAGA. Still, I just can’t muster the cynicism to make it make sense.
Sometimes I wonder what Bailey’s mom thinks.
I learned that Dr. Jessica Bailey was the first female dean of the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s School of Health Related Professions and a revered and beloved leader there — and a champion of diversity efforts.
A 2022 article about her retirement describes Dr. Bailey’s mentorship and recruitment of the school’s then chief diversity and inclusion officer. In an earlier article, Dr. Bailey extolls that colleague for being “committed to providing opportunities for students who might otherwise not imagine themselves in a health care profession,” and having “the vision to recognize opportunities to make our health care work force be more representative of our Mississippi population.”
These are goals that her son claims are unconstitutional and racist.
During Dr. Bailey’s tenure as dean, she oversaw the development of a Diversity and Inclusion Champion Professional Development and Certificate Program. She supervised PhD theses concerning the need to diversify the health work force and bone marrow donors. She was lauded for her personal involvement in a program that recruited young Black men into medical professions.
I asked Bailey’s office whether the attorney general thinks his mother was engaged in illegal “woke political trends and blatant racial discrimination” in general, or specifically with the mentorship program for Black men.
His office responded:
“Attorney General Bailey has no knowledge of these programs administered in another state, years ago, when he was not in office. What he does know is this: DEI programs that condition opportunity on skin color violate the Missouri Constitution and the foundational American promise of equality under the law. Whether it’s in corporate boardrooms, public universities, or government contracting, he will continue to fight race-based discrimination in any form. He has led on this issue since taking office.”
That’s a clearer “yes, my mother did illegal, racist things” than I was expecting.
Bailey is not just disavowing the work of his highly accomplished mother, who has referenced the barriers she overcame as a woman in a male dominated field and who worked to help others up the ladder. He is twisting the law to claim all such efforts are illegal.
This post was originally authored and published by Bridgette Dunlap from Missouri Independent via RSS Feed. Join today to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
