NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tennessee’s Attorney General has opened a civil investigation into Deloitte — one of the state’s largest contractors — to determine whether some of the company’s diversity and hiring policies violate federal civil rights law.
Deloitte, part of the “Big Four” accounting firms, manages TennCare’s eligibility system. It’s a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars, including more than $160 million in state taxpayer funding, according to public records.
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“The state is testing whether any past practices crossed the line under civil-rights law,” Brandon Smith, partner at Holtzman Vogel and former Chief of Staff for Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, said. “The document requests aim to see how policies were actually put into practice.”
Investigators are examining whether the company set goals for hiring employees of certain races or genders, and if so, whether managers took steps to meet those goals in ways that could cross legal lines…