A recent Yale Daily News feature on the future of affirmative action quoted Garrison, Levin-Epstein partner Joshua Goodbaum on the use of race in employment law decisions. Prompted by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to consider challenges to affirmative action at Harvard and UNC, the newspaper asked Goodbaum whether affirmative action in the workplace might present a helpful paradigm for institutions of higher education.
According to Goodbaum, “[t]he current state of the law is that employers may engage in affirmative action if they have a ‘strong basis in evidence’ that remedial action is necessary . . . usually to remedy a demonstrated history of past discrimination.” He added that, “if the Supreme Court acts as predicted and prohibits race consciousness in university admissions, . . . employment lawyers may then argue for a complete ban on race-consciousness in hiring as well.”
Also quoted in the article – entitled “Experts weigh in on Supreme Court affirmative action case” – were Harvard Law School constitutional law professor Charles Fried and longtime Supreme Court reporter and Yale Law School lecturer Linda Greenhouse.