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The stage is set for DE&I to have a big year in 2024. After the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action in 2023, the court will decide on a gender discrimination case by this summer that could have broad implications for DE&I programs. And some experts have speculated that the political discourse surrounding this year’s presidential election will also impact diversity initiatives.
CEOs and chief legal officers are closely monitoring court cases and the public and political debate surrounding them. And new data suggests that while a small percentage of organizations have reduced their diversity initiatives over the last year, most companies aren’t letting the affirmative action case impact their efforts.
Littler Mendelson, an employment law firm, recently surveyed more than 300 C-suite executives in the US about their inclusion, equity, and diversity (IE&D) programs and plans.
Though 59% of respondents believed the 2023 SCOTUS decision on affirmative action has increased scrutiny of diversity efforts, 91% said it hasn’t caused them to deprioritize IE&D at their organizations. Some 16% said that while the SCOTUS decision hasn’t caused a reduction in IE&D efforts, it has changed their approach.
Furthermore, more than half (57%) of respondents said they grew their IE&D programs over the last year. Just 6% said they’ve reduced IE&D efforts since 2022, citing legal concerns (separate from the SCOTUS ruling) and costs as the top reasons.
“Many organizations are taking the prudent step of auditing and assessing their current initiatives, rather than eliminating them amid the challenges in today’s political and legal environment,” Jeanine Conley Daves, a member of Littler’s IE&D consulting practice, said.
While most respondents (64%) said their organizations have clear plans for diversity and inclusion initiatives, 18% said they don’t. Among the most common IE&D steps that companies are taking are providing implicit bias training to all employees (51%, while 26% plan to), and providing professional development geared to diverse employees (58%, while 19% plan to).
On the flip side, the least adopted initiatives include executive incentives for diversity priorities (23%), evaluating managers on IE&D (22%), and diversity fellowships (22%). The report speculated that organizations may try to steer clear of initiatives that could be viewed as legally risky, although the respondents did not specify their rationale.