A favorite corporate initiative that has recently gained traction and favor on the left is now in danger of being dismantled, thanks to a recent ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In June, the nation’s highest court ruled that using race-based criteria for college and university admissions was not only a blatant violation of the Constitution but also anti-discrimination statutes. The 6-3 decision angered many on the left who accused the constitutionalist majority of engaging in “activism” — when, in fact, it was the left using activist policies to ‘increase diversity’ at institutions of higher learning, a change from the previous merit-based admission policies.
In any event, the court’s ruling has now sparked a wider debate about the use of “woke” diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in the corporate world.
According to Will Hild, the executive director of Consumers’ Research, the recent Supreme Court case could potentially expose companies that prioritize race in their staffing decisions as violating the Civil Rights Act.
“That fig leaf has now gone. There’s no question that affirmative action, racially based hiring and promotion schemes violate the Civil Rights Act,” Hild told Fox News Digital.
“And you no longer have this even potential loophole of the affirmative action jurisprudence. I think … you’re going to see a lot of companies, their legal compliance officers, are going to review what their DEI departments are doing and probably tell them to cut it out,” he added.
“I think you’ll see a lot of companies who might even get rid of their DEI departments because the philosophy around the DEI is almost directly in contradiction with the law, to begin with,” he added.
Hild noted that while most legal precedent related to affirmative action has been centered around higher education, corporations have been using that jurisprudence to defend certain DEI policies.
“This is going to put wind in the sails of groups like mine and others who are focused on getting the wokeism out of corporate America. They no longer even have this fig leaf of this pre-Harvard case jurisprudence,” Hild added.
Hild said that during 2020-2022, he saw companies engaging in “hiring promotion schemes” that, in some cases, were “explicitly racially based.” He said now, after the Supreme Court ruling, those companies and corporations are likely to be subjected to litigation and lose.
“And they were already, I think, playing with fire there and inviting some pretty serious litigation. Now, there really isn’t even a legal argument to be made that they can engage in this kind of behavior.” Hild said.
Gene Hamilton, America First Legal general counsel, said he believes that the Supreme Court decision is the “writing on the wall” for corporations.
“If I was advising major corporations and law schools and medical schools and everything else, I would tell them to immediately get out of the business of racial preferences and out of the business of racial quotas,” Hamilton said.
“Because what we see is the writing on the wall. We see the fact that there is no tolerance amongst the majority of the Supreme Court for these types of divisive programs,” he said.
“Tread carefully,” Hamilton warned, “there is a lot of liability for employers in this space.”
Hild added: “If they’re doing it explicitly, it’s going to be a very fast and negative case for them.”
“And if they’re doing it quietly, I think they’re playing with fire. If it comes out in emails or communications that they may not have said it on the job application, but they were discriminating quietly within the company, they’re not going to have any legal defense at this point that their goals were noble, and so it’s OK. It’s just flat-out illegal now,” he noted further.