Lockheed Martin Agrees to Pay $29.5 Million in DEI-Related Discrimination Settlements

Lockheed Martin has agreed to pay approximately $29.5 million to resolve allegations that it discriminated against white employees through diversity, equity and inclusion practices while serving as a federal contractor. The Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the two-part settlement on 3 November.

Under the Justice Department agreement, Lockheed will pay $22 million to the United States to resolve claims under the False Claims Act. The government alleged that the company falsely certified compliance with anti-discrimination requirements in federal contracts while taking race into account in hiring, promotion, compensation and training decisions. A former vice president, Tim Booher, filed a qui tam action that the department later joined. Booher will receive $4.4 million under the whistleblower provision.

The EEOC portion provides roughly $7.5 million to more than 1,000 affected employees. It resolves a 2025 Commissioner’s Charge filed by EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas alleging race discrimination against white workers in performance assessments and bonus decisions. The agencies described this as the largest class of workers to publicly recover under an EEOC settlement for Title VII violations arising from or relating to a DEI program.

The allegations center on a 2021 program called Compensation Adder. It awarded an extra pay increase to the top 20 percent of employees in each business area on top of company-wide raises. The Justice Department said human resources staff pressured managers to remove non-minority employees from the lists and replace them with minority workers, including by focusing on employees near the cutoff. Booher alleged he was told to swap 18 white employees for minority workers. The government also claimed race and sex factored into hiring, promotion and mentoring to meet internal diversity goals.

As part of the EEOC agreement, Lockheed must comply with Title VII and Executive Order 14151 and maintain a merit-based workplace in which race and sex are not considered in hiring, compensation, bonus or promotion decisions. The company denied wrongdoing and said it settled to avoid the cost and distraction of prolonged litigation. It stated that the programs in question have already ended.

This is the fourth and largest such settlement involving federal contractors under the current administration’s approach to DEI practices. Earlier settlements involved Deloitte, Accenture and IBM. Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said federal contractors must certify that employment decisions, including compensation, are made without regard to race or sex. Lucas said Title VII protects every worker and that protection does not yield when decisions are framed as diversity initiatives.

Lockheed is the prime contractor for the F-35 fighter program. The settlement does not admit liability. The company said it will remain focused on its national security mission. The EEOC has prioritized majority-group discrimination cases under Lucas. She previously invited claims of workplace discrimination from white men.

The resolution closes the specific allegations related to the Compensation Adder program and related practices. It does not resolve any separate private claims. Booher resigned in May 2023, stating in a later filing that he could no longer be complicit in what he viewed as illegal discrimination. The settlements were announced after months of investigation that began with the whistleblower complaint and the EEOC charge.