There’s an unfortunate truth HR professionals must deal with: It only takes one errant supervisor to undo all the hard work put into creating and perfecting polices and initiatives. Your company’s diversity initiative is no different.

According to diversity consultant and founder of QUEST Diversity Initiatives LLC Natalie Holder-Winfield, you can’t just write up your diversity initiative or policy and hand it to your supervisors and expect them to fully understand and integrate it into their daily routine. As with any other program or policy you want to initiate, you should provide your supervisors with training and even directions for how they should engage in the initiative.

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Same-sex marriage and benefits for same-sex partners are issues that appear to be gaining momentum.  A number of state legislatures and state supreme courts have recently addressed these issues and same-sex marriage is now legal in six states.  President Barack Obama also recently extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, promising that the extension was “a historic step towards the changes we seek.”

The Presidential Memorandum

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The U.S. Supreme Court ended its 2008-2009 term in dramatic fashion when it released its decision in a highly anticipated and controversial reverse discrimination case. Although the case had been in the media since it reached the Supreme Court, it became even more intensely scrutinized once President Barack Obama chose Judge Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee. (Sotomayor was part of the three-judge panel that affirmed the opinion of the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which heard the case before the Supreme Court.)

In a nutshell, the city of New Haven, Connecticut, threw out the results of a written exam used to promote firefighters because it worried that not enough minorities had passed the test. A group of white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who passed the test sued the city, claiming that throwing out the test results discriminated against them because of their race. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in the firefighters’ favor. Let’s explore the impact of this important ruling.

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On May 29, the Administrative Review Board (ARB) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued an important decision on the scope of coverage of the nondiscrimination and affirmative action provisions of Executive Order 11246, Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act, and Section 402 of the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA).

Background

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