A nonprofit defending women's issues plans to sue the U.S. Secret Service for what it alleges is an "arbitrary" diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) initiative that harms female employees.
The proposed lawsuit from the Independent Women's Forum (IWF) comes more than two months after some pointed fingers at female USSS agents assigned to former President Trump's detail at his July 13 presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, when a 20-year-old shooter gained access to a nearby rooftop and shot at Trump with an automatic rifle.
"In our country, it is illegal for the government to discriminate on the basis of sex. That is the Constitution's 14th Amendment," May Mailman, director of the group's Independent Women's Law Center, told Fox News Digital. "But also Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sex. And yet you have the Secret Service, of all agencies, saying that they want to have a 30% female quota."
A Secret Service spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the agency does not comment on pending litigation matters.
Mailman added that there is a "30x30" pledge that various law enforcement agencies have taken with a goal to reach a 30% female workforce.
"And we know that Kim Cheatle took this very seriously. We know that she made hiring decisions based on this," Mailman said.
In 2022, President Biden appointed former USSS Director Kimberly Cheatle, who resigned after the July assassination attempt, making her only the second woman to lead the agency.
Cheatle previously served as senior director of global security at PepsiCo, where she was responsible for directing and implementing security protocols for the company's facilities in North America.
Critics have accused Cheatle of prioritizing ideologies rooted in DEI instead of only focusing on hiring the best for the agency. While at the Secret Service, Cheatle has stressed the importance of increasing diversity in the Secret Service. The "30%" female quota stems from a 2023 CBS report stating that the agency was looking to increase women recruits to make up 30% of the USSS workforce.
"I'm very conscious as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities to everybody in our workforce, and particularly women," Cheatle told the outlet.
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Women currently make up 24% of the USSS workforce, according to the agency's website.
The Diplomatic Security Service — which is the protective arm of the State Department, whereas the Secret Service is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security — has a similar pledge "to increase the representation of women in its recruit classes to 30 percent by 2030," as an April press release states.
Mailman pointed to three reasons IWF takes issue with the 30% pledge: first, "it's illegal, and you shouldn't discriminate on the basis of sex," she said. Second, "it's particularly dangerous in the Secret Service" to hire on the basis of sex or other identifying factors rather than solely on expertise and qualifications for the job. Third, "it's particularly harmful to women," Mailman said.
"I am sure it is not easy to be a woman in any male-dominated field, including the Secret Service. But as we all remember, when the pictures of that day came out, it was immediately like these women are all cops, and they can't find their holster," Mailman explained. "All of the blame seems to be on women, including Kim Cheatle, all the way down. That's what happens when you have quota systems . . . you turn women into tokens. That makes it really hard for women who are trying to be respected and earn their way into male-dominated fields."
Agents received criticism for their handling of the assassination attempt on X from conservative voices including Matt Walsh, Dinesh D'Souza and even Elon Musk.
"As an elite law enforcement agency, all of our agents and officers are highly trained and fully capable of performing our missions. It is an insult to the women of our agency to imply that they are unqualified based on gender. Such baseless assertions undermine the professionalism, dedication and expertise of our workforce," Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement to Politico following the criticism. "We stand united against any attempt to discredit our personnel and their invaluable contributions to our mission and are appalled by the disparaging and disgusting comments against any of our personnel."
President Trump has defended the female agents who shielded him on July 13.
"Every one of them – there wasn’t one that was slow. A woman who was on my right, she was shielding me," he said at a rally at St. Cloud, Minnesota, two weeks after the assassination attempt. "Beautiful person – she was shielding me, everything she could. And she got crushed. And she got criticized by the fake news because she wasn’t tall enough."
IWF is joining Mountain States Legal Foundation’s investigation into what they describe at the Secret Service's reliance on DEI policies for hiring, retention and promotion.
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"Protecting candidates for President of the United States is imperative to the functioning of our Republic, and the catastrophic results of an assassination simply can’t be understated. Yet it appears that the Secret Service is prioritizing its DEI agenda over the need to hire the best person for the job, regardless of sex. If it takes a lawsuit to change that, so be it," Will Trachman, general counsel of Mountain States Legal Foundation, said in a statement.
IWF and Mountain States Legal also believe the 30% quota is "arbitrary." "Why not 31%? Why not 29%?" Mailman asked.
"We want for women to be seen and treated as the hardcore, bada-- women that they might be," she said. "We just don't know because the whole thing has been tainted by quota system."
The organizations are looking for additional people who have experienced hiring or promotional discrimination by the Secret Service to come forward and share their stories.
Fox News' Michael Dorgan and Hannah Grossman contributed to this report.
