Note from Column Editor Anton Lewis: This is a pivotal moment for the accounting profession as it grapples with a diminishing pipeline of graduates and persistent gaps in representation, both of which threaten its ability to effectively serve our increasingly diverse society. While there have been some modest advancements in recent years, leadership remains predominantly white, male, and middle-class—underscoring an urgent need for transformative change in our staffing, retention, and promotion practices.
This issue’s column, authored by Dr. Brandis Phillips, offers a crucial perspective. Drawing on landmark legal cases that address gender, race, and sexual orientation, Phillips demonstrates how the law has fundamentally reshaped our understanding of equity and inclusion. The message is unequivocal: we must dismantle entrenched stereotypes, implement intentional and measurable policies, and cultivate a genuine sense of belonging at the individual level. In an era marked by skepticism towards diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, the future of the accounting profession hinges on its commitment to authentically reflect the communities it serves.
There is a growing call for the accounting profession to broaden its talent pipeline to meet the changing needs of decision makers who depend on accurate financial information. Press reports suggest the pipeline of graduates with accounting degrees has until quite recently been in decline (see, e.g., J. A. Burke and R. S. Polimeni, “The Accounting Profession Is in Crisis: A Partial Solution to the Shortage of Accountants,” The CPA Journal, September/October 2023; Maura W. Sadovi, “FICPA President Still Pushing for CPA Pathways Despite Deregulation Battle,” CFO Dive, 2025; L. Kessler, “Accounting Talent Strategy Report,” National Pipeline Advisor Group, 2024, https://tinyurl.com/3s4btv2j). Firm demographics with regard to race suggest that a mere 30% of accounting partners between 2019 and 2021 were minorities (AICPA, 2021 Trends, https://www.thiswaytocpa.com/collectedmedia/files/trends-report-2021.pdf).
Even as the United States has become more ethnically diverse, corporate offices have not, and Peralta’s study of DEI shows accounting to be the least diverse of industries (P. Peralta, “The ROI on DEI,” Arizent Research, 2022, https://tinyurl.com/ycxrjn58; D. Streeter and T. Hammond, “Overcoming Obstacles to CPA Status in the United States of America,” in A. Lewis, A. Saatkamp, and J. Sopt (Eds.), Voices of Change. Race, Racism, and Colonialization in Accounting, pp. 22–32, Emerald Publishing, 2025). As such, the profession would be well served to examine its hiring, retention, and promotion policies to attract larger pools of diverse talent. Yet this requires the profession to come to terms with biases possessed by hiring managers (M. Bertrand and S. Mullainathan, “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination,” The American Economic Review, vol. 94, no. 4, pp. 991-1013, September 2004).
This article will take a look at how the law has evolved in the past decades with respect to diversity on dimensions of gender, ethnicity, and sexuality and how this applies to the accounting profession.
Gender Discrimination
In the early 1970s, the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg represented clients in landmark cases that argued gender-based discrimination violated the equal protection clause. In each case, one gender was favored over another. In Struck v. Secretary of Defense, Susan Struck became pregnant while serving in Vietnam and the policy was that all women must have an abortion or resign from the military. Struck cited her Catholic faith as a reason not to have an abortion and refused to resign. Ginsburg argued men couldn’t be subject to such a policy and the Secretary of Defense violated the equal protection clause. As such, the policy was rescinded prior to being heard by the Supreme Court and Struck was allowed to remain in the military.
Ginsburg also represented men in cases that revolved around gender stereotypes. In both Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld and Califano v. Goldfarb, Ginsburg argued that men deserve survivor benefits in the same manner that women do. Wiesenfeld was a caregiver to his elderly mother, and he was denied benefits because “men” should not be considered caregivers, as this was considered “woman’s work.” Goldfarb was denied survivor benefits because, as the man in the relationship, he should have been the “primary breadwinner,” even though his wife had been before her untimely death. In both cases, Ginsburg successfully argued that the men were subject to arbitrary societal gender roles, and the equal protection clause was violated for both men.
Ethnic Discrimination in College Admissions
In the June 2023 case, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the plaintiffs argued that race conscious admissions policies negatively impacted Asian students in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court ruled that racial balancing techniques used by the institution violated the equal protection clause. The ruling also stated that the use of race was not narrowly tailored to achieve educational diversity. The institution’s programs lacked measurable objectives, relied on racial stereotypes (negatively portraying Asian applicants), and did not offer an end date for race conscious policies. The ruling effectively ended race conscious admissions policies at universities nationwide and essentially nullifies previous cases involving race in universities including Gutter v. Bollinger (2003) and University of California v. Bakke (1978), both of which allowed for race conscious university admissions policies. Although Students for Fair Admissions appeared to end race conscious university admissions policies, Justice Roberts equivocated the Court’s position, affirming that the opinion should not be interpreted as preventing universities from reflecting upon an applicant’s discussion of how race affected their life, be it through prejudice, inspiration, or anything else. The long-term impact of the case on college admissions remains to be seen.
Sexual Orientation Discrimination
In Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, the result was a reaffirmation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act which protects individuals specifically, rather than groups, from employment discrimination. Ames, a straight woman, was passed over for promotion in favor of a lesbian coworker then later demoted and replaced by a gay man. In a unanimous opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Brown-Jackson, she stated the law guarantees equal protection for every individual regardless of group membership. The ruling suggests that individual circumstances will weigh more heavily in discrimination cases going forward when plaintiffs feel their civil rights protections have been abridged through unequal treatment.
What About Accountants?
In each of the above areas of discrimination, gender, race, and sexual orientation, the common theme is violation of the equal protection clause where individual rights were abridged in favor of another person with a different group identity. But the question can be asked “What does this matter to the CPA?”
Cases such as Struck, Weinberger, and Goldfarb underscore how engrained stereotypes—like caregiving being viewed as “women’s work” and breadwinning as “men’s work”—perpetuate unfair treatment. For accounting, such lessons act as a warning sign to avoid assumptions around career dedication based on gender, instead ensuring equitable benefits and advancement opportunities. The Students for Fair Admissions decision posits the need for race-aware policies to be accurately tailored, measurable, and free from stereotypes. This directs the profession to prioritize equitable opportunity pipelines through outreach to underrepresented schools where recruitment and internship programs are concerned, noting the danger of recruiting from too small and too similar universities that have dampened diversity efforts before. This decision also underscores that, during the current “DEI winter,” success must be measured through equitable retention, promotion, and mentorship schemes to avoid potential accusations of tokenism or racial balancing in such work.
Finally, the ruling in Ames is grounded in the notion that Title VII defends separate people, not groups, highlighting equality at the individual level. In terms of accounting, its application requires transparent, merit-based promotion and evaluation systems. Nevertheless, the profession would do well to note the perils of cis-straight normativity being seen as the “authentic accountant.” Collectively, the above cases point to how to embed equity and belonging within current accounting practice, reminding CPAs that undoing entrenched bias and advancing inclusivity demand deliberate, demonstrable, and personalized approaches if they are to succeed. Inclusiveness training should stress respect for individual identity and reject the idea that inclusion is a “zero-sum game,” where one group’s gain is another’s loss. Here, policies must safeguard all employees equally, ensuring LGBTQ+ staff are neither disadvantaged nor tokenized.
The law—rightly or wrongly—has evolved to shield the rights of individuals as opposed to group identity. This means employment and retention practices must similarly adapt to changing times, inviting potential colleagues into the profession based upon knowledge, skills, and abilities that are fairly assessed and ensuring meritocracy is not performative. Such work becomes ever more challenging in our current anti-DEI environment, necessitating innovative approaches to the equality conundrum—in US accounting and beyond. By doing so, CPA firms have a better opportunity to meet their hiring needs as well as reflect the communities they serve.
