Virtual
Overview (Program Summary)
In an historic decision, the Supreme Court severely undermined the use of affirmative action in college admissions.
The Court ruled that the admissions programs used by the University of North Carolina and Harvard College violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which bar racial discrimination by government entities and recipients of federal funding, respectively. However, in recent weeks, opportunists have begun to both overstate and misrepresent the reach of the decision and stoke fears through implicit and explicit threats of litigation. Workplace diversity initiatives have become heavily politicized. Partisan actors at the state and federal levels have launched broad attacks on employers, improperly citing the recent Supreme Court affirmative action ruling to support their claim that workplace DEI initiatives may be illegal. On the other hand, some state and federal officials have made clear that the ruling did not change employment law and that DEI efforts remain lawful.
In this timely webcast, hosted in partnership with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law (which argued the University of North Carolina case in the SCOTUS), leading in-house counsel will discuss these attacks, how their companies are responding, and how they are continuing to prioritize advancing diversity and equity in their workplaces. This session is a follow-up to our successful session on July 6th, Insights and Implications from the SFFA v. Harvard and UNC Rulings.