How to Expand Diversity in the Workplace
09 Gennaio 2021 - 04:26PM
Dow Jones News
By Lauren Weber
Civil-rights lawyer Cyrus Mehri has fought some of the most
significant workplace race-discrimination lawsuits in U.S. history,
winning a $176 million settlement with Texaco in 1996 and a $192.5
million settlement with Coca-Cola Co. in 2000. More important than
the monetary relief for his clients, he says, are the structural
adjustments he insists on in settlements: extensive changes to
companies' internal human-resources processes, designed to fix the
systems that allow racial barriers to persist.
In 2002, Mr. Mehri co-wrote a report showing that Black coaches
in the National Football League achieved superior results to their
white counterparts, yet were more likely to be fired and less
likely to be hired. That work turned into the Rooney Rule, a policy
the NFL adopted in 2002, which requires teams to interview one or
more candidates of color for head coach positions. The rule is
named after Dan Rooney, the late Pittsburgh Steelers owner and
chairman of the NFL's diversity committee. Mr. Mehri says he was
inspired by an anecdote about former Army Secretary Clifford
Alexander, who was given an all-white list of colonels who were
ready for promotion. After he instructed his subordinates to look
again at the records of eligible Black colonels, Colin Powell was
among the names put forward. "The rest is history," Mr. Mehri
says.
In 2020, racial justice became a higher priority for corporate
America after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of police
and the protests that followed. Many executives engaged in public
reflection and vowed to fight systemic racism, promises for which
Mr. Mehri says they should be held accountable.
Mr. Mehri's parents immigrated to the U.S. from Iran, where his
mother was an outspoken critic of the Shah. Mr. Mehri grew up in
Connecticut and attended Cornell Law School. Through his law firm,
Mehri & Skalet PLLC, and his consulting firm, Working Ideal, he
shoots for sweeping changes to corporate practices over incremental
steps.
The Wall Street Journal spoke to Mr. Mehri in December about the
future of racial equity in the workplace.
This conversation would have looked different if we'd had it a
year ago. Is the time ripe for companies to make long-term progress
on equal opportunity?
We're in an incredible moment and we can do things that have
lasting change that goes five, 10, 30 years down the line. There is
a moral case for diversity and inclusion. And there's a business
case: long-term value is tied to diversity and diversity is tied to
innovation. But the last two years have told us there is a
democracy case, too. Our democracy is not sustainable if we don't
embrace equal opportunity and upward mobility. If we're going to
thrive as a democracy, we need to give people the feeling that,
with hard work and meritorious decision-making, they can rise to
the top. That awareness now should be crystal clear.
How do we get there?
At the bottom of the list is litigation. At the top of the list
is innovation. I'm looking for innovations that fit the American
spirit, and that's about fair competition, giving people a fair
shot and merit-based decisions. We need a new technology, a silicon
chip for equal opportunity. We have the ideas and the science to
make it happen. That's the good news.
What's an innovation that could have a strong impact?
Here's one: merge SEC disclosures -- annual reports, 10Ks --
with advancing equal opportunity. For example, require companies to
disclose race and gender data for their top 200 highest-paid
employees. It's a way to understand where the glass ceiling is. Do
it by total compensation so it includes stock options. It'll tell
you who's in the decision-making pool of the company. It can be
phased in over a couple of years so that companies have time to
improve. Companies will be like, "Before we release this
information, we want to be sure we're best in class. We want our
employees to see that, our consumers, our regulators, our
competitors." The disclosure will motivate them, spurring on even
more innovation. It will have a cascading effect. Companies that
are impervious to what stakeholders care about may not be
motivated, but everything comes back to leadership. Many are people
of goodwill and will take this as a challenge.
How about another idea?
Social science shows that having multiple diverse candidates or
women candidates has a monumental impact on outcomes. If you have
one woman versus two women on a slate, when you go to two women,
it's 79 times more likely that a woman will be selected [than if
there was only one woman in the pool]. When you go from one to two
people of color, the number goes up like 190 times. If there are
multiple diverse candidates, they're multiple times more likely to
be hired. Why is that? When you have isolated, coveted jobs, you
need to do something to change the norms because the presumptions
and stereotypes are so deeply rooted. It's not telling people who
to hire, it's about picking the best person.
You said that litigation isn't the way to achieve these goals,
but you've built your career on lawsuits that have forced big
companies to change the way they do things. Why is that not a
promising avenue to address these problems?
It's fair to say that in the last 10 years the door has almost
been completely shut on people having access to the courts. You
have forced arbitration: Just to apply for or keep a job, you give
up your constitutional right to a jury trial. Then you have the
legal standards escalating. The Walmart v. Dukes case [in which the
U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 narrowed the terms under which a group
can bring a class-action claim] makes it extremely difficult for
workers to band together to vindicate their civil rights. In the
Comcast case [in which the Supreme Court in 2020 raised the bar for
proving racial discrimination], they just elevated the standard for
intent. So the courthouse door is close to being completely shut.
That's even more of a reason why we need leadership in other
quarters.
Will we come to a point where regulation of some form -- whether
in litigation, legislation or less formal rules -- isn't necessary?
In other words, where racial equity in the workplace is simply the
norm?
I don't think that day is going to happen in our lifetime.
Sustained, continuous effort is required.
Interview has been condensed and edited.
Write to Lauren Weber at lauren.weber@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 09, 2021 10:11 ET (15:11 GMT)
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