Things may go better with Coke, but they don’t go better with Woke. The Coca-Cola company has taken major public relations hits for its role in attacking the Georgia voter integrity law, and its abusive and racist employee training that taught people how to “be less white.”
There also were the racial hiring quotas for outside counsel, something we wrote about on January 29, 2021, Coca-Cola Imposes Racial Quotas On Outside Counsel Staffing:
Coca-Cola Company is now mandating racial quotas for how its outside law firms staff Coca-Cola work. Not just aspirations to increase diversity, straight out minimums based on race. In the zero sum game of how a limited number of matters are staffed by a limited number of lawyers, that means Coca-Cola is mandating that law firms engage in racism.
The letter from then Coke General Counsel Bradley Gayton (pdf.) provided a chart spelling out the quotas, including who qualifies as a “diversity” attorney and what the minimum percentages need to be:
Outside counsel commit to providing KO with self-identified diversity data (including American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Black, Women, Hispanic/Latinx, LGBTQ+, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander and Persons with Disabilities) for KO’s quarterly analysis of the diversity of teams working on KO matters* * *For each new KO matter following the revision to the guidelines (“New Matters”), you commit that at least 30% of each of billed associate and partner time will be from diverse attorneys, and of such amounts at least half will be from Black attorneys. Work performed by diverse attorneys is expected to be accretive to their development and advancement at the firm. These percentages are approximately linked to U.S. Census population data. These minimum commitments will be adjusted over time as U.S. Census data evolves, with an ultimate aspiration that at least 50% of billed associate time and billed partner time will be from diverse attorneys with at least half of that amount from Black attorneys. You will also work to apply the above commitment to our existing matters with your firm.
The plan was controversial and generated a lot of criticism, because, you know, racial quotas in hiring and terms of employment are illegal. Coke was forcing law firms to violate the law.
Now Gayton is gone as General Counsel, moved the the vague role of “Strategic Consultant.” Bloomberg Law reports:
The Coca-Cola Co. announced Wednesday that it is moving legal chief Bradley Gayton to a “strategic consultant” role less than a year after he joined the company and promoting in-house lawyer Monica Howard Douglas to general counsel.Gayton, who joined Coca-Cola on Sept. 1 and recently announced ambitious new diversity requirements for the company’s outside lawyers, will immediately become a strategic consultant to Coca-Cola chairman and CEO James Quincey.“I, along with the company’s leadership team and the board of directors, thank Bradley for his service as our global general counsel,” Quincey said in a statement. “I look forward to working with him in this new role.”Gayton echoed that sentiment in a statement of his own. “It has been a privilege to do such important work with my amazing colleagues in the legal department and to be part of Coca-Cola’s dynamic leadership team,” he said.Coca-Cola spokesman Scott Leith, when asked about the impetus for its general counsel change or whether Gayton’s strategic consulting role is a permanent or temporary position, said the company would have no additional comment.
It’s not clear what caused Gayton to lose the position. “Strategic Consultant” sounds like a do-nothing position to save him the embarrassment of being fired outright, or perhaps he has a contract that guarantees him employment for some definite term. After all, he previously was General Counsel at Ford Motor Co., so he likely would not have left without some employment guarantee. That may be why he reportedly is getting a $4 million one-time bonus and $666,666 PER MONTH for a year for being a do-nothing Strategic Consultant. Sound like a settlement to avoid a lawsuit.
Ed Whelan points out:
Gayton is also reported to have “received almost $4.7 million in total compensation” for his four months of employment with Coca-Cola in 2021. So he will have received some $17 million for his eight months as general counsel (and for whatever consulting he ends up doing, which I expect will be close to nothing).
Whatever happened, his bio page has been removed:
So we can’t say that the racial quotas caused his termination. Considering how Woke Coke has become, maybe he wasn’t aggressive enough.
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