‘Woke’ Coke Pauses Diversity Plan After ‘Intense Backlash,’ Plan Author Suddenly Resigns

‘The hard truth is that our profession is not treating the issue of diversity and inclusion as a business imperative,” Gayton wrote in his letter. “We have a crisis on our hands and we need to commit ourselves to specific actions that will accelerate the diversity of the legal profession.”

Legal experts, Fox Business noted, questioned “whether Gayton’s policies violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says employers can’t treat people differently based on their race.”

“Legal defense foundation Project on Fair Representation published an open letter to Coca-Cola last week warning that Coke’s outside counsel ‘racial quota requirements’ are ‘unlawful,'” the outlet added.

Republican leaders announced boycotts and state and federal legislators warned that if Coca-Cola and other high-profile corporations did not stay out of politics that they could lose tax breaks at the state and federal levels. It’s not clear whether the boycotts or the threats of rescinding tax breaks worked, but Coca-Cola’s stock was down around 12% in January. The company plans to report first-quarter profits shortly.

In late April, Coca-Cola quietly announced that Gayton had departed his role as general counsel with a “golden parachute” — an unusual event given that Gayton had worked for the company for less than a year.