Ruling Blows ‘Gaping Hole’ in FOIA Shields for Diversity Data

Federal contractors may have lost certainty that the Labor Department can keep their workforce diversity reports out of the public domain by shutting down FOIA requests, after a federal judge ordered the agency to release that data from 10 companies.

Judge Kandis A. Westmore of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled earlier this month in favor of journalist Will Evans with the Center for Investigative Reporting, which sued the DOL in April for declining to turn over companies’ workforce demographic data in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The businesses include Gilead Sciences ...