Thirteen Republican attorneys general have sent a letter warning Fortune 100 CEOs against taking race into consideration as part of their employment and contracting practices. They claim this is in response to the recent Supreme Court case banning affirmative action in higher education. But the intent behind their threats has nothing to do with affirmative action–and everything to do with gutting all provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The recent letter may have been co-signed by the top lawyer in each of their respective states, but it doesn’t stand up to the slightest bit of legal scrutiny. Their primary argument is that the ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. President & Fellows of Harvard College has rendered “explicit racial quotas” illegal. This wholly ignores that racial quotas have long been prohibited under the Civil Rights Act, as decided by the Supreme Court in Regents of University of California v. Bakke all the way back in 1978. That’s a full 45 years of settled law that is being ignored in favor of inflammatory threats against America’s largest companies.
