Business owners which is why they urged the government and the supreme court not to overturn affirmative action in the Texas case.
Big Business Backs Affirmative Action at Supreme Court
By Paul M. Barrett
Some of the biggest corporations in America say that having a diverse payroll helps boost sales, and they want the Supreme Court to keep that in mind as it considers this term’s affirmative-action case. The justices heard oral arguments on Oct. 10 that addressed whether the University of Texas may favor racial minorities in admissions. Aetna (AET), Dow Chemical (DOW), General Electric (GE), Halliburton (HAL), Merck (MRK),Microsoft (MSFT), Northrop Grumman (NOC), Procter & Gamble (PG), Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), Xerox (XRX), and 47 other companies filed a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that the case has bottom-line business implications as well.
“The only means of obtaining a properly qualified group of employees,” the businesses said in the brief, written by the law firm Jenner & Block, “is through diversity in institutions of higher education, which are allowed to recruit and instruct the best qualified minority candidates and create an environment in which all students can meaningfully expand their horizons.”
Merck says having people of South Asian and Arab descent on the payroll has helped drive sales. The company had anticipated that Muslim women would be hesitant to use its Gardasil, a vaccine that protects against the virus that causes cervical cancer. So, Merck told the court in the brief, it “sought the assistance of its Muslim employees in obtaining halal certification”—the Islamic equivalent of the kosher stamp of approval—for the vaccine. “Having a diverse workforce helped us get this product to market faster and ensure that it would be well-received by customers around the world,” says Bruce Kuhlik, Merck’s executive vice president and general counsel.
Darryl Bradford, senior vice president and general counsel of Exelon (EXC), another corporation that joined the brief, says the power company isn’t “in favor of racial preferences, per se, let alone quotas. Instead, we think great universities like the University of Texas ought to be able to consider race as one factor among many.” Asked why large corporations cannot simply hire whom they wish, without colleges using controversial racially oriented admissions policies, Bradford says Exelon seeks “job applicants who have worked together in a diverse student body because that’s the world they will find here.” Universities, he adds, should have leeway to shape those student bodies as they see fit.
(Cont.)
The bottom line: Fifty-seven companies filed a brief in the Supreme Court arguing that affirmative action is integral to building global workforces.
@ affirmative action
I'm the same way.
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