The End of Affirmative Action: Implications for the Workplace

When the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action and removed it from the college admissions process, it was seen as a warning of things to come. Although the ruling applied only to higher education admissions (Title VI), Justice Gorsuch wrote a separate opinion that the reasoning behind the decision could be applied to workplace discrimination law (Title VII).

The effect of the decision has been to put corporate America on notice that their current strategies for recruiting diverse workers may have to change. It is already illegal to make hiring and firing decisions based solely on race, and while it is true that the current ruling does not apply to workplace law, as Harvard law professor Noah Feldman pointed out in a recent interview on All Things Considered, "some lower courts would probably take the view that just by saying what they've already said, the court has already done enough to make it clear that you can no longer use racial diversity as an objective in workplace hiring."

Instead, businesses who have created strategies that include DEI as a part of their their decision-making and recruitment process will have to re-assess the language they use both internally and publicly. For example, by shifting their focus on racial diversity to one that looks at the backgrounds of job candidates and the challenges or obstacles they have had to overcome.