ELI in the News

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision last Thursday holding that admission programs at Harvard College and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill were unconstitutional could affect employers’ diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, according to stakeholders.

Since the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on affirmative action last week, many observers have sounded the alarm on how it might shake up the corporate world and derail hard-won initiatives that address diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace. The decision effectively gutted race-based admissions in higher education—a major departure from decades of precedent that some legal experts say could set the stage for attacks on corporate DEI programs. “The sense is that rationale is going to move back into the workplace world of affirmative action,” says Stephen Paskoff, a former EEOC attorney and employment lawyer who now runs the training company ELI.

Addressing racial bias in AI calls for diverse development teams to identify problems others might miss. But a recent Supreme Court ruling could affect how the tech industry builds its workforces. This challenge could prompt the tech sector and others to shift recruiting and hiring strategies by enhancing anti-bias training for recruiters, widening recruitment efforts and revising interview tactics.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, ruling it unconstitutional for schools to consider race during the admissions process. In the short term, the move will likely impact companies’ entry-level talent pool, potentially narrowing the breadth of diversity available at the earliest stage of the employee pipeline.

After the recent Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in college admissions, many are now turning their attention to the workplace, where employment diversity programs (like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) could be the next to face scrutiny from the courts. DEI has been polarizing in the world of politics, where Democratic voters and politicians advocate on behalf of these hiring initiatives, while Republicans have criticized these policies as unfair and discriminatory. On the podcast, employment law expert and CEO of ELI Inc., Stephen Paskoff, joins to break down exactly what DEI means for a company’s hiring practices, how employers’ diversity initiatives will be impacted by the latest SCOTUS decision, whether existing programs will soon face legal challenges, and how the affirmative action ruling may change the way companies pursue diversity.

The month of June presents the opportunity to reflect on the unique and important perspectives of others through the celebrations of Pride Month and Juneteenth. Monthly awareness campaigns provide a small window to help us better understand the experiences of others, while honoring the commitments we all can make to meaningful progress in creating more inclusive workplaces and transforming cultures.

A former regional director at Starbucks alleged that the coffee giant fired her because she’s white. A jury just awarded her over $25 million. Shannon Phillips, who oversaw about 100 coffee shops across four states, was fired by the company after a 2018 incident at a store in Philadelphia involving the arrests of two Black men. A video of the arrests went viral, leading to protests outside the location and prompting more than 8,000 Starbucks stores to undergo racial-bias training.

New research suggests that a significant portion of employees, particularly younger ones, have experienced workplace harassment. According to a survey by consulting firm Deloitte, 61% of Gen Z and 49% of millennials have experienced harassment or microaggressions in the past year. Around 80% of those said they reported it, with around a third saying their concerns were not handled well.

More than half of federal-sector equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaints since 2018 have included an allegation of harassment, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The agency is working to reverse this trend.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released updated guidance for preventing harassment in federal workplaces. The guidelines provide useful recommendations for private-sector employers as well. The recommended practices are as follows…