By Jacki Thrapp
IBM will pay millions of dollars to resolve allegations that it failed to comply with anti-discrimination requirements in the workplace.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche revealed on April 10 that the International Business Machines Corp. will pay more than $17 million to the United States after it allegedly took race, color, national origin, and/or sex into account when it made employment decisions.
Over $8 million of the settlement amount will be restitution.
The New York-based corporation was accused of knowingly executing discriminatory employment practices such as using a diversity modifier which tied bonuses “to achieving demographic targets.”
It also was accused of altering interview criteria based on applicants’ race or sex, and offering training and advancement programs that were limited to people based on their race or sex.
“Racial discrimination is illegal, and government contractors cannot evade the law by repackaging it as DEI,” Blanche said. “The Department launched the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative to root out this misconduct, hold offenders accountable, and end this practice for good.”
In connection with the settlement, IBM said it terminated and modified “various programs” and practices that caused the issue.
IBM has 14 days to pay the millions to the Civil Division of the Department of Justice, according to the agreement signed Friday.
“The Nation’s anti-discrimination laws are clear and reflect our basic commitment that opportunity, compensation, and advancement should turn on merit and performance, and not immutable characteristics,” Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brenna E. Jenny said.
The move was applauded by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward in Friday’s press release.
“Merit drives promotion and opportunity. Not someone’s sex or race,” Woodward said.
“Today’s settlement proves this Department’s commitment to ensure companies are not using taxpayer funded work to further woke unconstitutional practices in American workplaces.”
Friday’s announcement marked the first False Claims Act resolution secured under the Civil Rights Fraud Initiative, which the Department of Justice launched in May 2025.
In December, the U.S. Department of Energy also announced that it has partnered with 24 companies, including IBM, in one of its broadest public-private coalitions to date on artificial intelligence, connecting some of the industry’s leading players with the department’s research labs.
The DOE said in a Dec. 18 statement that it has signed the pacts to advance the Genesis Mission, a national initiative aimed at using AI to accelerate scientific discovery while strengthening U.S. energy and national security capabilities. The mission is also described as a strategic effort to reduce reliance on foreign technology.
Participants include other major cloud computing giants such as Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Oracle; semiconductor makers Nvidia, Intel, AMD, and Hewlett Packard; alongside AI developers OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI.
Bill Pan and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
