The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in the college-admissions process Thursday may have also dealt a blow to corporate America’s slow-going efforts toward diversity in top-tier positions, experts and others say.In... The Supreme Court’s decision to strike down affirmative action in the college-admissions process Thursday may have also dealt a blow to corporate America’s slow-going efforts toward diversity in top-tier positions, experts and others say.
“The decision, while not surprising, will create issues for employers in future,” said Tim Bartl, the president and CEO of the HR Policy Association, a trade association of chief human-resources officers for more than 400 of the country’s largest corporations. The HR Policy Association filed a friend-of-the-court brief, also known as an amicus brief, in support of Harvard and UNC. Its member companies “rely heavily” on colleges and universities to supply a diverse and qualified talent pool, the organization said in its filing.
Skepticism from the Supreme Court majority Of course, there are skeptics who question why race should play any role. Those include the Supreme Court majority, which found the admissions policies violated the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause. The U.S. workforce is a diverse place as a whole, according to findings this year from a Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance. Still, C-suites in corporate America remain “disproportionately white and male.”