The Northwestern Mutual EEOC lawsuit is a subpoena enforcement action the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed on November 20, 2025 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, asking a judge to force the Milwaukee-based insurer to turn over records about its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The agency is investigating a discrimination charge by a former compliance officer who says the company’s DEI policies caused him to be passed over for promotion because he is a white man. Northwestern Mutual has refused to fully comply with the EEOC’s administrative subpoena, and the fight over that subpoena is now before the court.1EEOC v. Northwestern Mutual, Case No. 2:25-mc-00053 (E.D. Wis.)
The Charge Behind the Investigation
Mark McNulty, a former anti-money laundering officer who had worked in compliance roles at Northwestern Mutual’s Milwaukee headquarters since 2016, filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC on March 1, 2025. He alleged that he was passed over for promotion twice in favor of female colleagues, and that the denials were based on his sex, race, color, and national origin, which he identified as male, white, and American-Irish.
McNulty’s charge focused on changes he said the company made to its DEI policy starting around 2020, when it “enhanced its existing Diversity Equity and Inclusion policy by focusing on providing additional support and opportunities for women and people of color.” According to the charge, Northwestern Mutual adopted mandatory performance metrics designed to advance women and people of color, gave those employees additional mentorship and promotional opportunities, and tied the metrics to financial rewards and career advancement decisions.
Northwestern Mutual denied the allegations. In a position statement filed in May 2025, the company said its diversity initiatives “do not allow for hiring or promotions based on race, sex, or any other protected class,” and that McNulty was simply not qualified for the promotions he sought.
What the EEOC Subpoenaed
After a meet-and-confer session, the EEOC served an administrative subpoena on Northwestern Mutual on June 27, 2025. It sought:
- Promotion and career-progression data for McNulty’s work group
- Documentation of the company’s DEI policies and practices
- Records from the firm’s human resources information systems
- Company performance metrics tied to financial rewards
- An interview with Amy Hanneman, Northwestern Mutual’s vice president of diversity and inclusion
Northwestern Mutual filed a petition to revoke or modify the subpoena on July 3, 2025. The EEOC issued a determination on September 4 declining to significantly narrow its requests. The company then provided what the EEOC called only minimal responses and refused to make Hanneman available, arguing she had no role in the decision not to promote McNulty. That refusal is what pushed the agency to court.
Northwestern Mutual’s Legal Arguments
The company’s defense leans heavily on the Supreme Court’s 1984 decision in EEOC v. Shell Oil Co., which requires the EEOC and complainants to identify allegedly unlawful employment practices with reasonable precision.
Northwestern Mutual argues McNulty’s charge is too vague to justify the sweep of the investigation and calls the subpoena an improper “fishing expedition.” The company says the EEOC has refused to specify which policies, positions, or employee groups are at issue, making it impossible to evaluate the charge or mount a defense. It also argues that the demands for company-wide DEI records are “untethered” to McNulty’s individual claims, which it characterizes as involving only two sex-based promotion decisions in favor of white female colleagues.
The company has also invoked Section 713 of Title VII, which gives employers a complete defense when they act in good faith reliance on written interpretations or opinions from the EEOC. Northwestern Mutual argues the agency is now treating as unlawful the same kinds of diversity measures it previously encouraged, and that by refusing to identify the specific practices under attack, the EEOC is preventing the company from invoking that defense.
McNulty’s Firing and a Retaliation Claim
The dispute widened in September 2025. On September 2, Northwestern Mutual confronted McNulty with what it described as a “substantial volume of electronic communications” discovered during a search of his files tied to the EEOC charge. The company’s termination letter said McNulty had sent “scores of disruptive, demeaning, and bigoted messages about the company and his colleagues” to a small group of junior employees. Northwestern Mutual cited three grounds for firing him: egregious breaches of trust and confidentiality policies, discouraging employees from performing their jobs, and transmitting the offending communications. He was fired on September 8, 2025 after refusing to acknowledge any impropriety.
Three days later, McNulty filed an amended charge alleging that his termination was retaliation for exercising his rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Northwestern Mutual submitted its response on September 25, 2025.
Where the Case Stands
The EEOC filed the enforcement action on November 20, 2025 after what it described as unsuccessful attempts to obtain voluntary compliance. The matter was initially docketed as a civil action (Case No. 2:25-cv-01842) but was promptly reclassified as a miscellaneous case (2:25-mc-00053) by Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries, in keeping with local district practice for subpoena enforcement petitions. It was later assigned to Judge Brett H. Ludwig.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas issued a statement with the filing: “When we see clear indications that an employer’s DEI program may violate federal prohibitions against discrimination, we will use the full extent of our authority — including subpoena enforcement — to obtain the information needed to investigate and take appropriate action.”
Northwestern Mutual has filed a brief opposing enforcement. Based on available court records, no ruling on the merits of the subpoena had been issued by mid-2026, and the litigation remained active. Importantly, this is a subpoena enforcement proceeding, not a discrimination lawsuit on the underlying facts; the court is being asked to decide whether Northwestern Mutual must produce the requested records and witness, not whether the company’s DEI programs violated Title VII.
Why This Case Is Part of a Larger Pattern
The Northwestern Mutual action is one piece of a broader EEOC campaign under the Trump administration to scrutinize private-sector DEI programs as potential Title VII violations. The direction was set by executive orders signed in January 2025, including “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” which directed the Attorney General to develop a strategic enforcement plan targeting private-sector DEI programs and told agencies to identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of major corporations, nonprofits, and educational institutions.
The EEOC has moved on multiple companies since. In February 2026, it filed a similar subpoena enforcement action against Nike in the Eastern District of Missouri, alleging a pattern of disparate treatment against white employees in hiring, promotion, and layoff decisions tied to Nike’s “2025 Targets” for racial and ethnic representation. That investigation, which originated from a charge filed by Commissioner Lucas herself in May 2024, sought records on 16 specific programs alleged to provide race-restricted career development opportunities and data on whether executive compensation was tied to DEI metrics.
In May 2026, the EEOC sued The New York Times in the Southern District of New York, alleging the newspaper denied a white male editor a promotion to deputy real estate editor in favor of a less-qualified non-white female candidate to meet internal DEI goals. The Times called the lawsuit “politically motivated.” The agency also reached a $500,000 settlement with Planned Parenthood of Illinois in March 2026 over allegations involving segregated racial caucus meetings and harassment of white employees during DEI trainings.
The legal ground shifted in the EEOC’s favor in June 2025, when the Supreme Court decided Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services unanimously. Writing for the Court, Justice Jackson held that the Sixth Circuit’s “background circumstances” rule, which had required majority-group plaintiffs to clear a higher evidentiary bar to bring discrimination claims, was inconsistent with the text of Title VII. The ruling lowered the threshold for so-called reverse discrimination claims and reinforced the EEOC’s position that Title VII protects all employees equally regardless of demographic background.