Minority based bonuses? Whistleblower says Lockheed Martin favoured race over merit; top performers dropped due to ‘too many white employees’

A former Lockheed Martin employee has claimed that America’s largest defence contractor awarded bonuses based on employees’ race rather than their job performance, reports the City Journal.The act was described as an unethical and potentially illegal practice.The whistleblower, who worked in Lockheed’s aeronautics division, alleged that in late 2022 he was instructed by senior officials to revise the list of employees eligible for year-end bonus payments after it was deemed to contain “too many white employees.” The revised list was expected to include more minorities, regardless of their performance.According to internal emails seen by the source, Lockheed executive Santiago Bulnes contacted the whistleblower following a complaint from the company’s human resources director, La Wanda Moorer. Bulnes wrote, “I got a call from [human resources director] La Wanda [Moorer] last night regarding diversity stats on comp adder. They took a run at getting your few approved and we’re told that we need to fit in the box. I asked her to send you the list of diversity names to simplify the task of finding the best in the group.”Lockheed’s human resources team allegedly provided specific instructions, such as increasing the number of people of colour while decreasing the number of “non-minority” recipients by an equal number. One instruction reportedly said: “increasing POC for Comp Adder will result in removing equal count of non-minority.”The whistleblower says he raised an ethics complaint and warned that the policy was discriminatory and risky for the company. Management dismissed the concerns, with HR counsel reportedly responding that it was the “lesser of two evils.”When he questioned what would happen if the team could not find enough minority candidates to swap in, Moorer replied, “[T]he preference is for you to get there. If you are coming back and saying you can’t get there and it’s unnatural than I think that changes the conversation as a business area what risk are we willing to assume, and should we get into a situation where there is legal activity that takes place then you will be part of that process.”Eventually, the whistleblower claims he was forced to replace 18 white employees with 18 minority ones on the bonus list. In a resignation letter shared with colleagues, he wrote, “I, at the direction of Lockheed, have actively discriminated against higher performing individuals, denied them higher pay they earned, denied them the opportunity to be motivated as a top performer.”Lockheed Martin has responded by insisting it operates as a meritocracy. A company spokesperson said, “Lockheed Martin is a meritocracy and we are committed to recognising performance, rewarding excellence, and upholding the principles of merit and fairness.” The company added that the claims “raise concerns that we are taking seriously and investigating.”The allegations come as civil rights enforcement shifts under the Trump administration. A recent executive order bans federal contractors from operating discriminatory DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes. Harmeet Dhillon, now heading the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, is reportedly interested in cases involving anti-white discrimination.