US files lawsuit vs Minnesota over affirmative action mandate

DT·15 January 2026, 12:36 pm·1 min read

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US files lawsuit vs Minnesota over affirmative action mandate — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi (C) departs a closed door briefing with senators on the U.S. the capture of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, at the U.S. Capitol on January 7, 2026 in Washington, DC. Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken to New York on Saturday after they were captured by the U.S. military in Caracas. They are being detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and are expected to face federal charges related to drug trafficking and working with gangs designated as terrorist organizations.
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The United States Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the State of Minnesota, challenging the state’s requirement that all government agencies adopt sex- and race-based affirmative action plans in hiring and personnel decisions.

Filed by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, the lawsuit seeks to block Minnesota’s policy directing agencies to consider affirmative action goals in staffing decisions and to “balance” the sex and race composition of the workforce with the civilian labor force.

“From suing over sanctuary city policies to a wide-ranging fraud investigation, today's lawsuit is the Department of Justice's latest effort to bring Minnesota into compliance with federal law,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “Making hiring decisions based on immutable characteristics like race and sex is simple discrimination, and the Trump Administration has no tolerance for such DEI policies.”

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon said the case builds on recent Supreme Court rulings limiting the use of race in decision-making.

“For far too long, courts have allowed employers to discriminate based on race and sex when it is packaged as ‘affirmative action,’” Dhillon said. “The Supreme Court put an end to using race as a factor in college admissions through its Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision. This case is the next logical step. Title VII protects all people from race and sex discrimination in employment. There is no exception that allows discrimination against employees who aren’t considered ‘underrepresented.’”

U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen for the District of Minnesota said the lawsuit aims to hold state officials accountable for alleged abuses of authority.

“Minnesotans already had to see their state officials let criminals brazenly walk off with over a billion taxpayer dollars,” Rosen said. “Now they see those same officials abusing their power by systematically and unlawfully branding jobseekers as the wrong race or sex. The United States Attorney General and the Justice Department are on the side of Minnesotans and have stepped in to hold the State accountable.”

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, alleges that Minnesota’s affirmative action mandate violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by discriminating against employees and applicants based on race and sex.

“Because staffing is a zero-sum game,” the complaint states, “when Minnesota gives preferences to employees or prospective employees on the basis of their race, color, national origin, and sex, it inevitably and necessarily discriminates against other employees or prospective employees because of their race, color, national origin, and sex.”

While the U.S. Supreme Court previously allowed the consideration of race and sex in hiring for “traditionally segregated job categories,” the Justice Department argued that such precedents are inconsistent with the text of Title VII and later Supreme Court rulings.

Bondi has certified the case as a matter of general public importance, a designation that triggers expedited review by a three-judge district court and allows for direct appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States.