Dr. Squatch

Popular Soap Brand Gets Sudsy With Woke Giant

Two DEI Settlements, One Clear Warning for Federal Contractors

As the saying goes, “To be forewarned is to be forearmed.” American companies doing business with the federal government have once again been forewarned about the risks of engaging in DEI practices. To ignore these warnings can be very costly for the company, its shareholders, and employees.  Just four months ago, IBM paid more than $17 million to resolve allegations that it maintained illegal diversity, equity, and inclusion practices while performing federal contract work. That settlement was the first resolution under the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Fraud Initiative. It was also a clear warning. Last week, President Donald Trump’s DOJ announced that another top federal contractor has agreed to pay $21.5 million to settle similar allegations. The Justice Department alleged that Deloitte violated the False Claims Act by certifying compliance with federal nondiscrimination rules while applying race and sex preferences in hiring, promotions, and staffing. Business units tracked “demographic goals” with color-coded scorecards, and roughly 150 of the firm’s most senior leaders were evaluated, and in some cases compensated, based in part on progress toward those targets.  The government further alleged that promotion classes for partners were assigned racial and sex targets, that staffing for federal contracts was managed with a priority toward demographic parity …

The DOJ Is Suing Over Secret “Gender Transitions” in Schools. The HRCF and Its Corporate Backers Helped Pave the Way

The Human Rights Campaign Foundation (HRCF) has spent years pushing gender ideology into our nation’s K-12 schools through its Welcoming Schools initiative. Marketed under the guise of “bullying prevention,” this HRCF flagship program supplies LGBTQ+ resources and trainings to educators and school boards. According to the HRCF’s 2026 Annual Report, more than 30,000 educators participated in Welcoming Schools training last year. Given the program’s unparalleled reach, it should come as little surprise that HRCF’s influence can be seen in the policies now at the center of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Kansas City, Kansas Public Schools (KCKPS).  On September 1, 2026, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas sued KCKPS “to stop the district from facilitating secret ‘gender transition’ for children at school without their parents’ knowledge or consent.” The department’s complaint points to KCKPS’s transgender guidelines, which chart a course for staff to help students “transition” without the parents’ involvement. The HRCF has historically supported such guidance. Its Welcoming Schools resources are riddled with suggestive language hinting at exceptions to informing parents about their child’s sexuality. The organization uses a student’s “right to privacy” as justification. As evidence of this stance, the HRC has condemned school districts on the basis of “student privacy,” including the Carson City School District, which recently enacted new policies requiring school faculty to inform parents …

Delayed Study From Pro-Gender Ideology Researcher Finds Puberty Blockers Don’t Help Kids

A major taxpayer-funded study initiated in 2015 to observe the effects of puberty blockers and opposite-sex hormone therapies was finally released. The results are anything but shocking. While the authors were hoping to demonstrate that these unsupported therapies would prove beneficial, the study confirmed what every other credible study has shown: These drugs do not deliver the promised positive health outcomes for minors. The long-delayed findings from the NIH-funded Trans Youth Care study led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy have now been reported. It is notable that the final report was released only after the Oversight Project sued. Without these efforts, this data might still be buried. The study followed roughly 95 youth ages 8 to 16 on puberty blockers and tracked depression symptoms, emotional functioning, and parent-reported behavioral measures over a 24-month period. The results showed no significant improvement. Nada. Mental health metrics remained essentially “stable,” which was a kinder way of saying that the serious mental health conditions of the patients before receiving these controversial treatments remained serious afterward. There was no evidence of the positive clinical gains that had been repeatedly asserted to justify these interventions on developing children. These children not only had to continue suffering from their unfortunate mental health issues; now these …

What Corporate Executives Can Learn from the Cracker Barrel Saga 

Cracker Barrel announced last week that Julie Masino would be succeeded in her CEO and Director roles, effective August 10, by former Bloomin’ Brands CEO David Deno. Her failed tenure shows what happens when executives discard the most basic principles of business leadership. Although a company filing claims Masino was terminated without cause, this was an expected result given her leadership over Cracker Barrel’s disastrous rebranding efforts last year, which hurt its stock price by over $100 million. Masino was the second high-profile executive to leave the company since the rebranding effort, following DEI consultant Gilbert Dávila, who resigned after receiving only 42% of shareholder support at Cracker Barrel’s annual meeting last November. Too often, our corporate leadership class confuses social trends with long-term vision. Cracker Barrel now joins companies like Disney and Bud Light as a cautionary tale of what can happen when a company loses sight of its business fundamentals. For executives at other major American companies, the Cracker Barrel saga provides three strong lessons that, regrettably, still bear repeating: 1 Remain committed to your distinctives Read more 1 Remain committed to your distinctives A modernizing redesign stripped Uncle Herschel from the logo and cleared out the antiques, abandoning the brand’s core. 2 …

Final NIH Report on Multi-Million Dollar Olson-Kennedy Study Shows Puberty Blockers Don’t Help Kids

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The final report for the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded “Trans Youth Care” study led by Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles was finally made public this month, after the government watchdog organization Oversight Project was forced to sue the agency for its release.   The multi-year, multi-million-dollar observational study examining physiological and psychological effects of puberty blockers and sex-denying hormones on youth with gender dysphoria has concluded, and the final report was submitted January 6, 2026.  This taxpayer-funded research was intended to evaluate longer-term impacts of these interventions. Its conclusions reinforce a growing body of evidence that puberty blockers lack reliable proof of benefit for children and carry long-known risks to bone density, fertility, sexual function, and development.   “The mass medical experiments on children need to stop,” said Doug Napier, Executive Chairman and CEO of 1792 Exchange. “These findings align with the emerging consensus that there is no benefit, but significant risks of harm to children, including impacts on bone density, fertility, sexual function, and cognitive development.”  “The Cass Review in the United Kingdom, the Finland study, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ own 2025 peer-reviewed report on pediatric gender dysphoria all underscore the serious concerns about the impacts of these experiments. And this study is yet another nail in the coffin for transgender ideology,” Napier continued.   The data on puberty blockers for children continue to show no significant positive mental or emotional health gains. Earlier peer-reviewed and preprint analyses from the same “Trans Youth Care” cohort—tracking depression symptoms, emotional health, …