Judicial Watch Urges Justice Department to Investigate Florida County for Woke Quota Scheme for ‘Diversity Advisory Council’

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it submitted a formal request to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division for an investigation of Hillsborough County, Florida’s Board of County Commissioners for various racial and other quota appointment practices used to staff its Diversity Advisory Council.

In a letter sent to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon Judicial Watch asserts that Hillsborough County’s Diversity Advisory Council violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

Judicial Watch requests the Office of Civil Rights investigate Hillsborough County, Florida’s Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) for its use of race, sexual preference, gender identity, and disability to appoint members to its Diversity Advisory Council. This practice violates the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

The [Commissioners] created the Diversity Advisory Council as a governmental body structured around explicit identity-based classifications.

The Diversity Advisory Council is explicitly structured around identity classifications, requiring representation from specific racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, and disability groups. Council members are appointed in fixed numbers by identity category, with vacancies filled group-by-group rather than through a race-neutral or merit-based process.

In addition to arguing that the appointment process violates racial and sex discrimination law, Judicial Watch argues the Diversity Advisory Council’s structure rests on impermissible stereotyping rejected by the Supreme Court, assuming individuals’ viewpoints are defined by their sex or gender identity:

[T]he criteria sort applicants into preferred identity groups without any meaningful connection to the substance of the advice sought. Such arbitrary distinctions, untethered to any legitimate government objective… therefore violate the equal protection clause.

Judicial Watch previously submitted public records requests in June and December 2025 for documents related to the Commissioners’ use of these unconstitutional eligibility criteria and now urges the Justice Department “to open a formal investigation into Hillsborough County’s Board of County Commissioners and take appropriate remedial actions.”

“This woke racism and sexism is a textbook violation of the Constitution,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Government bodies exist to serve all citizens equally—not to segregate Americans into woke identity groups. The Trump Justice Department should take action.”

In May 2025, Judicial Watch uncovered records from the U.S. Military Academy West Point, revealing that speakers at the March 2024 “Founders Day” event were instructed to “AVOID saying ‘removed,’ ‘replaced,’ ‘deleted’ [when referring to the new mission statement] – just refer to the ‘updated mission statement and reinforce that the motto remains unchanged.” [Emphasis in original] The records also tied Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts to the mission statement controversy.

In January 2025, the City of San Francisco, CA, in a 7-3 vote by the Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco, authorized a settlement agreement in a taxpayer lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch against the City, agreeing to discontinue its discriminatory guaranteed-income program funded by taxpayer money in favor of transgender individuals with a preference for biological black and Latino men who identify as women. The agreement commits the city to pay $3,250 in attorney fees and costs and not to create a new guaranteed income program with the same eligibility criteria.

In November 2024, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of War for information regarding the rebranding of West Point’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) office to “Office of Engagement and Retention.”

In July 2023, Judicial Watch exposed records from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a component of the War Department, which included instructional materials and emails that addressed topics such as Critical Race Theory, “white privilege,” and Black Lives Matter.

In March 2023, records from the War Department showed the Air Force Academy had made race and gender instruction a top priority in the training of cadets.

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