Disney Exec’s Bombshell Claim That Company Doesn’t Want To Hire White Men Prompts Call for Civil Rights Probe
‘Such clear evidence cannot be ignored,’ says conservative advocacy group America First Legal.
A video of a Disney vice president telling an undercover journalist that Disney doesn’t want to hire white men has prompted a request for a civil rights investigation.
The video, which appears to show a Disney vice president, Michael Giordano, admitting the company doesn’t look to hire or promote white men, caught the attention of Elon Musk and Senator Lee of Utah when it was released on June 20. It was reposted on X hundreds of thousands of times.
Mr. Giordano also claims that he was passed over for an internal promotion on several occasions because of his race, which he says was “told explicitly” to him.
The O’Keefe Media Group later released another video in which a second Disney employee — production director Sohrab Makker — speaks of Disney’s discriminatory hiring practices, but this time for upper-level roles.
He claims that the company won’t won’t hire anyone “who’s not white or not Jewish” for C-Suite level roles.
“There’s a glass ceiling,” Mr. Makker says to an undercover journalist in the video.
Two days later, conservative advocacy group America First Legal filed a request for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to open a civil rights investigation of Disney after the company’s hiring policy in response to the evidence presented in the newly documented videos.
“Such clear evidence cannot be ignored,” America First Legal’s executive Director, Gene Hamilton, wrote in a statement.
“Disney was once an iconic American brand — truly, the epitome of the American dream in the business world in the Twentieth Century.
“Yet it appears to have gone far astray from what made it great — particularly with the failure of its senior leadership to ensure that employment decisions are made based on merit and not immutable characteristics.”
“We are once again presenting the EEOC with evidence of discrimination at Disney and asking for it to take corrective action to ensure equal opportunity for all Americans,” he adds.
The statement comes just a few months after the organization filed a federal civil rights complaint against Disney back in February for similarly violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
In the complaint, the organization cited a hiring policy document listed on Disney’s “Reimagine Tomorrow” website which mandates that some jobs — including producers, writing staff, and department heads — must be filled at least 50 percent by members of “underrepresented groups.”
The policy showed that “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin are often the only motivating factor in Disney’s hiring, training, and promotion decisions,” the organization claimed.
Disney, America First Legal charged, “is intentionally discriminating against white American men, Christians, and Jews simply because of their race, sex, religion, and citizenship.”
The equal employment opportunity commission, however, has “yet to take any action,” on the complaint filed back in February, America First Legal writes in the new investigation request, published on Thursday.
“Please accept this letter as a renewed request for investigation based on additional information showing Disney executives discussing their race-based hiring programs,” the new statement reads.
It is unclear whether the EEOC has taken any action in response to the second request. Disney has yet to publicly respond to the letter. Neither immediately responded to the Sun’s request for comment.
Daily Wire Host Michael Knowles suggests that the videos may mark a turning point for discriminatory hiring policies.
The fact that the videos show a white executive complaining about the policy could spark a “political awakening” among those who fall victim to DEI policies, he argues in his podcast show.
“The only way that’s going to change is if the white guys like this Disney employee come out and say, ‘Hey, I’m a white guy and you’re treating me unfairly because I’m a white guy and I’m not going to take it anymore,” Mr. Knowles says.
“And I’m going to vote for candidates who aren’t going to treat me unfairly because I’m a white guy. And I’m going to bring lawsuits against companies that treat me unfairly because I’m a white guy,” he adds. “That’s the only way it changes.”