On May 19, 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced a new Civil Rights Fraud Initiative within the Department of Justice to "utilize the False Claims Act to investigate and, as appropriate, pursue claims against any recipient of federal funds that knowingly violates federal civil rights laws."
The initiative will be co-led by the Fraud Section of the Civil Division, which enforces the False Claims Act (FCA), and the Civil Rights Division, which enforces federal civil rights laws; it will include lawyers from these Divisions and designees from each of the 93 U.S. Attorney's Offices, who are expected to pursue the initiative "aggressively." The initiative also calls for coordination with DOJ's Criminal Division, other federal agencies that enforce civil rights requirements for their respective funding recipients, and state attorneys general. In addition, the announcement states that DOJ "strongly encourages" private whistleblowers to initiate their own lawsuits under the FCA'squi tamprovisions (under which whistleblowers, known as relators, share in any monetary recovery).
The announcement is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump Administration to target diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that it contends violate federal civil rights laws in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023). In particular, one of President Trump's first executive orders — Executive Order 14173, Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity (Jan. 21, 2025)—directed each federal agency to include terms in every federal contract or award requiring the counterparty "to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws" and "to agree that its compliance [with such laws] is material to the government's payment decisions for purposes of [the FCA]." Since then, federal funding agencies have taken various actions to try to add such terms to existing awards, to new awards, and to the general terms governing such awards, as with the HHS Grants Policy Statement (April 16, 2025).
These developments underscore the need for organizations that participate in federal programs—whether as grant recipients or contractors—to ensure that they comply with federal civil rights laws, and that they have robust internal compliance programs to do so. A well-designed and faithfully implemented compliance program serves two important purposes: (1) surfacing issues for investigation and remediation to reduce the risk of noncompliance in the first instance, and (2) bolstering potential arguments to defend against any allegations that isolated instances of noncompliance were the result of "deliberate ignorance" or "reckless disregard" of the law under the FCA.
WilmerHale has leading False Claims Act, Anti-Discrimination, and Higher Education practices that work seamlessly to advise clients on these highly sensitive—and consequential—issues, including with respect to DEI compliance assessments, and stands ready to vigorously defend clients in any related federal investigations and litigation.
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