Honeywell Firing Over DEI Training Lawful, Seventh Circuit Says

Honeywell International Inc. didn’t violate federal and state workplace anti-discrimination laws when it terminated a White engineer for defying requests from management to participate in a mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion training, a federal appeals court ruled.

Three Trump-appointed judges at the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Wednesday found no evidence that Honeywell retaliated against the worker after he complained that the online-based unconscious bias awareness training—which it required workers to complete during the height of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2021—contained discriminatory content.

Charles Vavra’s claim of having a reasonable belief that the training ...