Hogan Lovells

Trump Admin Grills Law Firms over DEI Hiring Discrimination, Including Perkins Coie of ‘Pee Dossier’ Fame

US civil rights agency targets 20 big law firms with demand for DEI data

The HRCF Taught School Districts to Hide “Gender Transitions” from Parents. Now the DOJ is Suing a Kansas School District for Doing Just That. 

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 …

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, …

The Cost of “Choice”: Corporate Funding Behind Assisted-Suicide Advocacy

Six Fortune 500 companies, through their affiliated charitable vehicles, have facilitated significant donations to Compassion & Choices, a U.S. nonprofit advocating for expanded access to physician-assisted suicide and other end-of-life practices. Compassion & Choices promotes medical aid in dying (MAID) through voluntarily stopping eating and drinking (VSED), palliative sedation that “advances the time of death,” and dementia directives that allow patients to refuse food and fluids.  Companies may consider support for “choice,” “autonomy,” and “death with dignity” consistent with socially progressive philanthropic programs. However, physician-assisted suicide is a violation of the patient-doctor trust and a red line that is being crossed by providers. This represents yet another example of corporations using company resources to support and fund social causes that bear no connection to their core business operations or fiduciary interests. The American Medical Association’s Code of Medical Ethics states that physician-assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer” and warns that it could pose serious societal risks.  Corporate involvement raises another uncomfortable question: What happens when death becomes the least expensive healthcare option?  Healthcare systems respond to financial incentives. This is particularly relevant to large corporations operating self-funded employee health plans. Unlike employers purchasing traditional insurance, self-insured employers generally pay covered medical expenses directly as claims occur. The Department of Labor confirms that these employers therefore bear the financial cost of covered healthcare themselves.  For a terminally ill patient, …