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Amid the misinformation and litigation surrounding some diversity programs, HR and DE&I professionals have a new tool to track lawsuits and their outcomes.
Earlier this month, the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the NYU School of Law launched the Advancing DE&I Initiative. The project features an online tracker of DE&I litigation likely to impact the workplace.
The tracker currently details roughly 100 cases, some of which date back to before the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action in June 2023. Many of the lawsuits target programs that aim to help specific marginalized groups, particularly Black and LGBTQ+ workers.
“The tracker is for anyone who supports and wants to advance DE&I,” Christina Joseph, the project director of the Advancing DE&I Initiative, told HR Brew. “We’ve tried to design the tracker to be in plain language, give safe, but sufficient information about the cases, because we want it to be accessible to HR leaders [and] DE&I practitioners.”
The Meltzer Center wants the initiative to serve as a resource to anyone committed to continuing their company’s DE&I efforts, she said. The tracker is the first step, with additional DE&I-related content and resources to follow.
Organizations need to educate people on what the programs entail so they can continue supporting underrepresented employees, Joseph said.
“How do organizations continue to assure people that are at the margins in the workplace that what’s happening in the legal, political, [and] social space won’t lead to watering down DE&I efforts or retreating entirely?” she said. “There’s an important consideration to be had in organizations understanding the legal landscape, and responding to that, while also still assuring their employees that this work still matters to them.”