CIOs worry that the Supreme Court's ruling overturning affirmative action at colleges could make IT less diverse, The Wall Street Journal reported.
"Apart from the Supreme Court's recent decision, diversity in tech long has been a challenge," Steve Watt, CIO of Hyland Software, told the newspaper. "We know there is more work to be done."
IT chiefs said the ruling could reduce the pipeline of diverse college graduates and cause companies to rethink their diversity policies, according to the July 17 story. A group of Republican attorneys general has already threatened to sue big companies that continue race-based preferences for hiring and promotions, citing the court's decision.
Black employees made up 8 percent of IT workers last year, compared to 12 percent of the U.S. workforce overall, according to CompTIA statistics cited in the article. For Latinos, those numbers are 8 percent and 17 percent respectively. Only 6 percent of CIOs or IT directors were Black, while 8 percent were Latino, per the data.
The court's ruling is "another pendulum swing," Robert Scott, vice president of the Information Technology Senior Management Forum, a group focused on developing Black tech leaders, told the Journal. "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."