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Coca-Cola has abandoned, at least temporarily, a controversial company diversity plan that was accused of violating the Civil Rights Act.
What is the background?
Bradley Gayton, who was the general counsel for Coca-Cola, announced a new diversity plan in January that promised to punish outside law firms seeking to work with Coca-Cola.
Under Gayton s plan, outside law firms would be required to use diverse attorneys for at least 30% of their billable hours with Coca-Cola, half of whom were required to be black. Firms that did not meet the diversity quota would be financially penalized.
The plan stated:
Failure to meet the commitment over two quarterly reviews will result in a non-refundable 30% reduction in the fees payable for such New Matter going forward until the commitment is met and, continued failure may result in your firm no longer being considered for KO work.
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George Floyd s murder last year forced a reckoning on race that extended to the boardroom. Photo / AP
George Floyd s murder last year forced a reckoning on race that extended to the boardroom. Photo / AP
Financial Times
Promises on diversity and racial justice have proved easier to make than to keep. The words systemic racism used not to be spoken on US companies earnings calls. The murder of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer last May, abruptly changed that, putting the phrase into the mouths of the country s top executives and forcing them to consider their part in a system they were now denouncing.
(AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee, File)
Welp! Looks like the Coca-Cola company is coming out of its fog of WOKE, finding the wreckage to their reputation and their market share a little too hard to take.
Woke Coke has gone flat.
Coca-Cola has paused its controversial diversity plan that included penalties on outside law firms if they failed to meet racial diversity quotas after intense backlash.
The pause comes after the orchestrator of the plan, Coke’s former general counsel Bradley Gayton, abruptly resigned last month after less than a year on the job and as criticism of the quotas mounted.
The Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company pauses controversial diversity plan
Plan requires outside law firms working for company to meet racial quotas
At least 30% of law firm s attorneys billed by Coca-Cola must be minorities
Plan also requires law firms to have half of the minority attorneys be black
Diversity plan put in place by Coca-Cola ex-General Counsel Bradley Gayton
Gayton resigned last week to become consultant to CEO James Quincey
He was replaced by Monica Howard Douglas, who announced pause in plan
Coca-Cola came under fire from GOP after it opposed Georgia s election reform
For True Equality, Reject Misguided Notions of Equity | Opinion C. Boyden Gray and Jonathan Berry
, Boyden Gray & Associates On 5/4/21 at 7:00 AM EDT
The idea that equal outcomes or equity should be achieved at the expense of equal opportunity has come to be the dominant view of the American intelligentsia, especially with regard to race. Vice President Kamala Harris, for example, released a video not long ago arguing that there s a big difference between equality and equity. Equality of opportunity is unfair; what s now needed is equity, which means that we all end up at the same place.
The private sector has begun taking this to heart. In a recent open letter, Coca-Cola s now-former General Counsel, Bradley Gayton, complained that Coke s previous efforts to increase racial diversity at the law firms it hires were not working. Gayton announced that, moving forward, the company will require its outside law firms to meet racial quotas in staffing Co