Joint Center President Discusses Corporate Initiatives that Reduce Systemic Bias and Minimize Legal Risks

Joint Center President Spencer Overton joined WilmerHale Partner Ronald C. Machen and Diversity Lab CEO Caren Ulrich Stacy for a Luminate+ conversation on corporate initiatives that reduce systemic bias and minimize legal risks.

Immediately after George Floyd’s death, many Black employees at major companies came to the Joint Center asking for ideas about what their companies could do to advance diversity in hiring, promotion, the C-suite, the boardroom, and retaining third-party vendors.  One obstacle they faced was co-workers who were hesitant to take action because they thought that promoting diversity would be “reverse racism” that violated the law. However, the Joint Center and WilmerHale collaborated to create How to Advance Corporate Diversity in Compliance with the Law: A Toolkit, which served as the topic of this conversation.

In this discussion, Spencer states “we measure what matters; metrics and accountability are fundamental business principles. And it’s important to apply this basic management principle to diversity.”

View the discussion recording here. You may view the cited toolkit, How to Advance Corporate Diversity in Compliance with the Law, here.