Stephen Miller’s America First Legal is taking aim at “woke” Kellogg’s, claiming that the food giant is “engaging in illegal, race-based discrimination” and management has attempted to “politicize and sexualize its products.”
The conservative legal group founded by the ex-senior adviser for former President Donald Trump announced that it filed a federal civil rights complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, calling on the EEOC to investigate the Kellogg’s policies and programs that it described as “infused with woke ideology.”
The complaint on Kellogg’s joins a list of groups and brands that have received backlash from conservatives in recent months including Bud Light, Target, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Cracker Barrel.
The legal group’s senior counselor Reed D. Rubinstein, in a letter to the EEOC on Wednesday, wrote that Kellogg’s “engages in unlawful employment practices by seeking to ‘balance’ its workforce based on race, color, national origin, and sex.”
The letter went on to note a number of diversity initiatives at the company including one that strives to have 25% of “underrepresented talent” at the management level by the end of 2025.
The letter also pointed to concerns with a fellowship program for Black chefs at the company as well as a Kellogg’s promise to “achieve its ’aspirational gender parity goal’” of 50/50 at the management level in global operations by the end of 2025.
America First Legal claimed that the company’s employment practices “are unlawfully based on ‘equity’” which it described as “a euphemism for illegal discrimination.”
The legal group, in another letter sent to Kellogg’s CEO Steve Cahillane, claimed company management “has hijacked the brand to advance an extreme political and social agenda.”
“Despite the immense trust that hard-working American mothers and fathers have placed in Kellogg’s, management has discarded the Company’s long-held family-friendly marketing approach to politicize and sexualize its products,” the letter read.
America First Legal goes on to refer to several products and partnerships including a “Together with Pride” cereal featuring the Frosted Mini Wheats mascot holding a pride flag, Cheez-It boxes with RuPaul and Snooki, NEON Pink Block Party Lemonade Pop-Tarts, an “All Together” cereal-flavored lip balm and Tony the Tiger’s red carpet appearance with Dylan Mulvaney in June.
“Kellogg’s is yet another big corporation that will break the law and hurt its shareholders’ interests to serve the twisted woke ideology of its officers and directors; like Disney, Budweiser, and Target, Kellogg’s management has shown nothing but contempt and disdain for American families and American workers,” the legal group wrote on X (Twitter’s rebrand).
Kellogg’s, in a statement to Reuters on Thursday, said its committed to complying with employment laws and the company has policies to prohibit workplace discrimination.
“At Kellogg, our aspiration is to better reflect the diversity of our consumers and to strengthen our inclusive culture,” the statement read.
The legal group’s letters to the cereal giant arrives just days after it sued Target on behalf of an investor who claimed the company “misrepresented the adequacy of its risk monitoring” when it faced backlash over LGBTQ-themed products, Reuters reported.