On March 19, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) penned a letter to CFPB Acting Director Russell Vought expressing concerns regarding the Acting Director’s recent directive that allegedly advises all CFPB personnel to cease all work relating to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), including the CFPB DEI Strategic Plan (previously covered by InfoBytes here). Representative Waters’s letter alleged the directive instructs CFPB personnel to stop work involving the collection, analysis and publication of DEI-related data that is required by multiple federal statutes and final regulations.

Representative Waters also asserted that Acting Director Vought’s directive informs CFPB employees that further attempts to continue race-based and other DEI-related activities may be referred for investigation as potential civil rights violations. Representative Waters argued that in doing so, Vought is attempting to “intimidate employees and deter them from performing lawful and congressionally mandated activities,” and claimed these “directives themselves encroach on civil rights protections and contribute to a hostile and divisive work environment that could expose the Bureau to substantial legal liability.”

Visit our resource center, CFPB Pause: Where From Here?, to stay on top of the latest and what it may mean for the federal and state regulatory and enforcement landscape.