How SCOTUS College Ruling Could Affect Corporate Diversity Programs

Leah Barkoukis | June 30, 2023 10:00 AM

The Supreme Court’s college admissions decision could open the door to more challenges to diversity programs in the workplace, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Commissioner Andrea Lucas said Thursday.

“I think this is going to be a wake-up call for employers,” she told Fox News’s “America Reports.” “Today is a time — the best time for lawyers to really take a look at the lawfulness of their corporate diversity programs. Even though many employers don’t use the word affirmative action, it’s rampant today, from ESG, to focuses on equity, pretty much everywhere, there’s a ton of pressure at the corporate 100 across corporate America to take race-conscious decision-making — race-conscious actions in employment law, and that’s been illegal and it’s still illegal.”

She continued, “I have noticed an increasing number of challenges to corporate DEI programs and I would expect that this decision is going to shine even more of a spotlight [on] how out of alignment some of those programs are. And to be clear, I’m not criticizing all diversity programs, it really depends on how they’re structured. But to the extent that they’re explicitly or implicitly taking race into decision-making for employment decisions, race-restricted internships, race-restricted mentoring, race-focused promotion decisions, etc. There [are] a host of employment decisions. If you are using race as any factor in your decision-making, you’re already violating the law, and I expect that you are going to have a rising amount of challenges as this sort of raises that issue back to people’s attention.”