Woke lawfare uses courts to reshape American society, AFC report finds

Exclusive: A new report from the Alliance for Consumers (AFC) suggests that progressive, often climate change, and allied lawyers are increasingly using lawsuits not to win big dollars but to make big changes.

Since the final years of the Obama administration, FFC said courtrooms have become a “battleground” for the political left’s campaign to “remake American society” through “strategic litigation.”

The AFC analyzed employment discrimination cases, environmental lawsuits and corporate governance lawsuits and found that the outcomes, or desired outcomes, showed a pattern of courtroom strategy aimed at delivering policy changes that the left could not achieve through state or federal legislation—especially Regarding DEI and climate.

“If you really want to understand a big part of why corporate America has woken up, there’s a story to tell,” O.H. Skinner, executive director of the African Finance Corporation, told Fox News Digital.

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The Alliance for Consumers argues in a new report that some law firms are filing lawsuits aimed at achieving political outcomes that go beyond federal legislation. (Istock)

Skinner said American companies believed the president Barack Obama The President will follow him Hillary Clinton“ – demonstrating continuity in many of these policy areas – leading people to leave civil service jobs to join corporate HR and legal departments and achieve their policy goals with them.

Officials in Washington allegedly indicated that companies could face scrutiny if they do not align with emerging DEI priorities.

“This describes a world in which a lot of pressure has been put on American companies through government lawsuits, but also through private lawsuits,” said Skinner, whose previous work included working with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office under Mark Brnovich, who led the state’s largest consumer protection lawsuit against Google over location tracking.

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Gavel sits on the judge’s bench. (Istock)

Skinner compared this strategy to “plaintiff shopping” in class actions, where the company may be paid millions in settlement while it “negotiates a voucher for you” for plaintiffs who come forward.

One of the companies mentioned in the study — which Skinner pointed to as alleged evidence of its political convictions — sued the president Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani on behalf of Rep. Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Missouri, citing the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871 after January 6.

The AFC report pointed to a 2019 shareholder derivative suit filed by Cohen-Milstein against Alphabet — Google’s parent company — on behalf of New York AFC retirees, alleging that it breached fiduciary duties and covered up data breach and sexual harassment allegations.

Cohen-Milstein’s statement in the lawsuit alleged that Alphabet “reinforced” a misogynistic “coder” culture, and later celebrated a settlement that “radically changed Alphabet’s workforce policies,” including a “$310 million financial commitment to DEI initiatives” and its stance on “workplace equality.”

The AFC found that the lawsuit “served as a tool for advocacy groups to push a sweeping expansion of the DEI agenda at one of the largest companies with a massive budget commitment, all through litigation rather than through legislative action or shareholder demand.”

Cohen-Milstein did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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Skinner’s team also cited a case in which the Obama Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) allegedly circumvented lawmakers and created new DEI practices at another major company through aggressive litigation.

Bass Pro/Outdoor World agreed to pay $10.5 million and provide “other significant relief” to settle an employment discrimination lawsuit brought by Obama’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to the agency.

Management alleged that Bass Pro Shops discriminated against minority applicants, but instead of a strict cash settlement, it reached agreements to mandate equal employment opportunity training, positive diversity outreach and hire a DEI director, according to AFC research.

In a slave girl Climate lawsuit – As Honolulu sues Sunoco via Sher-Edling – Hawaii’s capital city reportedly alleged public nuisance claims and sought to hold oil companies liable for climate damage.

The lawsuit not only seeks financial damages for “climate-related infrastructure costs,” but also seeks lost profits, climate change mitigation measures and other corporate reforms, the African Finance Corporation report found.

“These cases attempt to use the courts to impose climate policy, effectively making judges responsible for energy and climate regulation rather than elected legislatures and administrative agencies with technical expertise,” the report said. Fox News Digital reached out to Sher-Edling.

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In another case, red state government employees were granted access Transgender health care After an employee accountant named Rich and other plaintiffs sued a health plan that refused to cover transgender care.

A $365,000 settlement was offered and split between the defendants and the gay rights group, while Georgia agreed to sweeping policy changes to cover transgender care — something that would normally fall under the legislature and would likely fail with a Republican majority in power.

The lead litigant in this case was the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund (TLDEF) – which has now merged into Advocates for Transgender Equality (ATE).

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“Strategic litigation brought by advocacy organizations has successfully bypassed Georgia’s legislative process to force intense disagreement Health care policy through judicial decree, illustrating how activist organizations achieve policy goals through the courts rather than democratic processes,” the AFC found in an analysis of its reports.

ATE did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

Impact litigation has long been used by advocacy groups across the political spectrum to advance policy goals through the courts. Right-leaning groups have also succeeded in crafting settlement agreements that secure policy outcomes rather than purely monetary settlements.

In CRPA v. LASD, a district court ruled that members of a Second Amendment advocacy group could apply for non-resident concealed carry permits in California.

A 2025 case saw a judge rule in favor of the California Rifle and Pistol Association, requiring Sacramento to accept permit applications from any out-of-state resident who is a member of a number of Second Amendment organizations.

That tide, at least at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, has turned, Skinner told Fox News Digital, citing recent statements by new Trump-appointed chairwoman Andrea Lucas, saying her course instead would be to investigate corporate diversity programs and enforce them against DEI.

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“That’s the crucial part of each of them [the report’s] In some cases, companies aren’t alleged to have discriminated against women or minorities – they probably do, right. The problem in those cases and the thing I think you want to highlight is that someone was mistreated and got paid. It’s the lawsuit that was used to open up all sorts of other bells and whistles that weren’t directly related to anyone who was hurt, if they were hurt.

In Lucas’s comments to Reuters in December, she said she would “convert.” [EEOC] to a conservative view of civil rights.”

The AFC report concluded by summarizing that “lawsuits are increasingly being used not to resolve disputes or compensate victims, but rather to force policy changes that advocates have not been able to achieve through democratic processes.”

“This shift represents a fundamental challenge to democratic governance. When lawyers and activists can Imposing comprehensive political changes Without having to go to the polls, or even after being denied them at the polls, everyday consumers cease to have a direct say in the products and choices presented to them daily.