A year ago, I highlighted, and contested the legality of, the diversity quotas for outside counsel that Coca-Cola’s new general counsel Bradley Gayton had announced. Two months later, in a bizarre postscript, Gayton left his position as GC after only eight months on the job in exchange for a massive payout.
I am pleased to pass along that the American Civil Rights Project reports that Gayton’s successor as Coke’s general counsel has disclaimed Gayton’s illegal quotas, stating that they “have not been and are not policy of the company.”
In the words of the ACR Project’s Dan Morenoff, “Coke’s officers and directors recognized that their fiduciary obligations to shareholders made ‘go woke, go broke’ a problem not just for the company, but for each of them.” The ACR Project has also notified several other large companies that the similar discriminatory policies that they “merrily proclaim[]” violate federal and state laws.