WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, as part of its initiative under the AFL Center for Legal Equality, America First Legal (AFL) asked the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to open a civil rights investigation of Lyft, Inc. for multiple violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978.

Following the Dobbs decision, Lyft offered its employees a special employment benefit of “reimbursement for travel costs if an employee must travel more than 100 miles” for an abortion. Although Title VII prohibits discrimination based on childbirth, Lyft apparently does not offer an equivalent paid benefit to a pregnant woman who chooses life.

Racial, color, national origin, and sex-based “balancing” in hiring, training, compensation, and promotion has been illegal for decades. Nevertheless, Lyft’s employment practices are unlawfully based on a worker’s immutable characteristics. In 2019, Lyft said:

Lyft doubled-down on these unlawful hiring practices in their 2020 “Inclusion, Diversity, and Racial Equity” report: 

In 2020, Lyft announced a program of unlawful contracting preferences for “diverse” businesses called the “Lyft Supplier Inclusion” program: 

It appears, at times, that Lyft has also charged its customers differently based on their race:

AFL will continue fighting companies who engage in the odious, destructive, and illegal practice of hiring and promoting a person based on immutable characteristics. We will also continue to combat discrimination against women who bear children. 

Read the letter to the EEOC and to Lyft here and here.

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