{"id":460886,"date":"2021-04-28T16:35:19","date_gmt":"2021-04-28T20:35:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=460886"},"modified":"2021-04-28T16:35:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-28T20:35:24","slug":"coca-cola-under-fire-for-legally-questionable-racial-quota-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/coca-cola-under-fire-for-legally-questionable-racial-quota-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Coca-Cola Under Fire for Legally Questionable Racial Quota System"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcoca-cola-under-fire-for-legally-questionable-racial-quota-system%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=460886&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-2705.jpeg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"  style=\"display:none\"><\/div>\n<p>An anti-discrimination group is challenging Coca-Cola\u2019s attempt to impose racial quotas on outside counsel.<\/p>\n<p>Writing on behalf of the Project on Fair Representation, D.C. attorney Boyden Gray accused Coca-Cola of violating the Civil Rights Act with a new rule, which would punish contracted law firms unless a certain percentage of their billed associates are &#8220;diverse attorneys.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/POFR_COKE_Boyden_Gray__21_4_27_Letter_to_Coca_Cola_FINAL.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">the letter<\/a>, a copy of which was obtained by the <em>Washington Free Beacon<\/em>, Gray argues that policy violates federal law, which &#8220;prohibit[s] all forms of racial discrimination in private contracting.&#8221; Coca-Cola &#8220;appears to be following the view of \u2018antiracist\u2019 activist Ibram X. Kendi,&#8221; with their new requirement, Gray writes.<\/p>\n<p>Former Coca-Cola counsel Bradley Gayton, who last week was appointed to serve as a strategic consultant to the company&#8217;s CEO, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coca-colacompany.com\/media-center\/bradley-gayton-on-commitment-to-diversity\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">announced<\/a> in January that law firms partnering with Coca-Cola would face a 30 percent reduction in payment unless 30 percent of the firm&#8217;s billed associates and partners came from diverse backgrounds. Half of those associates must also be black.<\/p>\n<p>While the practice may have been implemented with good intentions, quotas &#8220;perpetuate&#8221; racial categorization, Gray told the <em>Free Beacon.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Coke\u2019s outside counsel policy may be well-intentioned, but racial quotas and the notion of group rights perpetuate pernicious racial categories and rest on a false, offensive, and racist notion that blacks and other racial minorities cannot compete,&#8221; Gray said. &#8220;Federal law prohibits this kind of racially discriminatory balancing. It is not enough for Coke to pause this policy; it needs to publicly revoke it. Coke should disavow race-based contracting, period.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Gray is acting on behalf of the Project on Fair Representation, a nonprofit legal group that fights racial and ethnic discrimination. The group\u2019s president, Edward Blum, told the <em>Free Beacon<\/em> he believes the company must withdraw the rule immediately.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is obvious to all observers that Coca-Cola&#8217;s recently enacted law firm contracting policies are illegal. The company should publicly withdraw these racial quota requirements immediately.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Blum helped organize Students for Fair Admissions\u2019 lawsuit against Harvard, which claims the university discriminates against Asian-American applicants. The group recently <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/campus\/supreme-court-pressed-to-take-up-harvard-affirmative-action-case\/\">petitioned<\/a> the Supreme Court to take up their case. Blum is also the architect of <em>Fisher <\/em>v. <em>University of Texas<\/em>, the last case that mounted a frontal attack on affirmative action before the High Court.<\/p>\n<p>Federal law bans race discrimination in private contracting, as Gray\u2019s letter notes. Lawsuits regarding contract discrimination go straight to federal court, unlike others that first must go through a years-long agency process. And unlike other anti-discrimination laws, there&#8217;s no cap on monetary damages under the fair contracting. Coca-Cola could be on the hook for a hefty financial penalty.<\/p>\n<p>The soda company landed in hot water in February after leaked documents from an internal diversity and inclusion training <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2021\/02\/23\/coca-cola-diversity-training-urged-workers-to-be-less-white\/\">session<\/a> asked workers to &#8220;be less white.&#8221; Coca-Cola did not respond to the <em>Free Beacon<\/em>\u2019s request for comment in time for publication.<\/p>\n<p><em>Kevin Daley contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An anti-discrimination group is challenging Coca-Cola\u2019s attempt to impose racial quotas on outside counsel. Writing on behalf of the Project on Fair Representation, D.C. attorney Boyden Gray accused Coca-Cola of &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2276941,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-2705.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Coca-Cola Under Fire for Legally Questionable Racial Quota System","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-460886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-2705.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"Coca-Cola Under Fire for Legally Questionable Racial Quota System","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2276941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}