CIOs Fear Affirmative Action Ruling Could Set Back Progress in Tech Diversity

Business technology leaders said that last month’s Supreme Court’s ruling that colleges can’t consider race in admissions policies could have a chilling effect on initiatives aimed at diversifying the information-technology workforce.

The court’s decision is likely to alter the pipeline of diverse graduates entering the job market, they said, and may introduce challenges to companies’ existing hiring and promotion practices.

By removing race from college admission considerations, the pool of tech talent entering the workforce may not only be less diverse, it could also be smaller if underrepresented minorities don’t see the field as a welcoming or viable option, those executive say.

“This, to me, is another pendulum swing,” said Robert Scott, vice president of the Information Technology Senior Management Forum, an executive development group focused on Black technology leaders, and dean of its Global Institute for Professional Development. “Those that are looking for an excuse to back off will back off” on diversity efforts, he said.

Adding to the pressure, a group of Republican attorneys general issued a letter on Thursday to the nation’s largest companies warning them against race-based preferences in hiring, promotions and contracting, citing the recent affirmative action ruling. 

Over the past decade, and especially over the past several years, many CIOs have helped to institute or strengthen programs to increase the numbers of minorities and women in their departments and initiatives designed to retain and advance those groups. But progress has been slow.

“Apart from the Supreme Court’s recent decision, diversity in tech long has been a challenge,” said Steve Watt, chief information officer at Westlake, Ohio-based Hyland Software. “We know there is more work to be done.”

Black employees accounted for 8% of the IT workforce in the U.S. last year and represented 12% of the overall U.S. workforce, according to IT trade group CompTIA, which based its analysis on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Latino employees made up about 8% of the IT workforce and 17% of the country’s workforce in 2022.

According to 2022 census data, the Black community made up 13.6% of the U.S. population, while the Latino community made up 19.1%.

Among IT leadership last year, 6% of CIOs or IT directors were Black and 8% were Latino, CompTIA found. That makes developing diverse IT leaders, who typically hold advanced college degrees, even more critical, ITSMF’s Scott said. “It’s more likely that somebody can compete for those top-level C-suite jobs, if they’ve gone through a more traditional path of growth and development,” he said.

“Many companies and leaders have embraced the need for diversity,” said Prasad Ramakrishnan, CIO of San Mateo, Calif.-based software maker Freshworks. “This said, there could be a downstream impact on the workforce of the future if companies don’t maintain the programs that are in place.”

The court’s ruling came amid a complex hiring environment for tech talent. Laid-off workers from Big Tech firms haven’t necessarily been looking for IT roles at nontech companies. And amid continued cost cutting, U.S. employers slashed IT jobs last month.

Yet there remain over 120,000 unfilled IT roles due to lack of qualified candidates, according to consulting firm Janco Associates, with the greatest demand in areas such as cybersecurity and software development.

“Whether or not there are affirmative action programs at universities or [diversity, equity and inclusion] programs at companies, the stark reality is that U.S. businesses and the public sector are faced with a major talent shortage in critical areas,” said

“I worry about, in universities, if we’re not making it a more hospitable environment, that we make it harder than it is,” said Sharon Mandell, CIO of networking and cybersecurity firm Juniper Networks. That means companies and IT leaders need to work to convince diverse workers that technology is “a compelling place, and a welcome place for them.”

At the moment, many CIOs said they have no plans to dismantle existing diversity initiatives in their own companies or IT departments, though some say the decision will require them to explain why such programs are important to company performance.

With improvement in internal diversity metrics, “we can tie it to our business outcomes,” said

Amplitude said Black employees account for 3% of its 700 workers this year, and Latino employees make up 5% of its workforce. In nontechnical positions, which include all departments outside of engineering and product development, 5% of employees are Black and 7% Latino.

Franklin Reed, executive director of global inclusion, diversity and equity at IT staffing and services firm TEKsystems, said some companies have pulled back on DEI efforts because they haven’t been able to connect diversity initiatives with both “soft and hard” business metrics such as employee retention, engagement and revenue.

For the most part, the firm’s corporate clients have said they will “stay the course” in DEI efforts following the Supreme Court ruling, he said. But the IT industry at-large has yet to fully recognize the effect the ruling could have on corporate DEI and hiring efforts, he said. “There’s this assumption that it was the education industry, and we’re business.”

Some companies have already said they are encountering resistance from employees regarding diversity programs and reducing their investment in DEI in a sluggish economy. Mentions of social-impact initiatives like diversity during earnings calls have fallen off sharply in recent quarters—reversing the trend of previous years.

That, in turn, has put more pressure on CIOs to keep their DEI programs in place and attract more diverse IT staff, executives said.

“If we can’t bring that diversity of thought into the workplace and into IT, at some level our solutions will be limited and flawed,” Juniper’s Mandell said. “I’ll feel like it’s my job, regardless of what the law is, to do my best to create a set of diverse viewpoints.”

Write to Belle Lin at [email protected]