As legal challenges mount, some companies retool diversity and inclusion programs, ETHRWorld
hr.economictimes.indiatimes.com | www.ETHRWorld.com
NEW YORK: Advocates of diversity efforts are steeling themselves for a fight this year as a growing number of lawsuits take aim at programs intended to advance racial equity in the corporate world.
Lawsuits making their way through the courts have targeted prominent companies and a wide array of diversity initiatives, including fellowships, hiring goals, anti-bias training and contract programs for minority or women-owned businesses. Most have been filed by conservative activists who have been encouraged by the Supreme Court’s June ruling ending affirmative action in college admissions and are seeking to set a similar precedent in the workplace.
The battle has been a roller coaster of setbacks and victories for both sides, but some companies are already retooling their diversity programs in the face of legal challenges, and the expectation that the conservative-dominated Supreme Court will eventually take up the issue.
“There’s a dragnet that I think we should all be concerned about,” said Alphonso David, President & CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum and a legal counsel for the Fearless Fund, an Atlanta-based non-profit that is facing a lawsuit over a grant program for businesses owned by Black women.
“It’s all coordinated to reverse existing law and advance a chilling effect…
Click Here to Read more /Source link