The $10 billion “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” industry could take a hit if the Supreme Court rules against affirmative action for college admissions.
Lawyers who specialize in corporate governance tell me that big companies are getting increasingly anxious about the future of DEI as the court is set to decide, possibly as early as this week, on the constitutionality of using race for admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
If the Justices rule against affirmative action, it could strike one of the biggest planks of the DEI industrial complex — money going to organizations based on race or race used as a factor in employment and promotion.
“The outcome certainly could change DEI policies if they throw it out,” said Charles Elson, the Founding Director of the John L. Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, and himself a corporate lawyer.
“There will be a lot of lawsuits,” Elson tells Fox Business’s Eleanor Terrett, particularly at companies that made race a factor in hiring or promotion.
John Coffee, Columbia University’s expert in corporate law agrees.
“A lot depends on how broadly the decision is written. They could write narrowly, even ducking the question. They could also proclaim that you cannot consider race and that would have application to other contexts such as affirmative action in employment.”
At least according to my sources, a growing number of big companies are preparing for worst, which in their view, is SCOTUS body-slamming Harvard and UNC.
One lawyer who has been working with several companies to reshape their DEI policies says money could be funneled into race-neutral endeavors, such as community groups that support poor people regardless of race, as opposed to BLM.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
