When admissions policy becomes hiring policy

In June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision: Colleges and universities could no longer consider race as a factor in admissions. The ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard/UNC was widely understood as a turning point for higher education and for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts on college campuses more broadly.

But the decision’s reach didn’t stop at the campus gates.

Even though the ruling was explicitly limited to university admissions, it changed corporate conversations about hiring, compliance, and risk. Legal teams, HR leaders, and executives pondered what it might signal about the future of workplace DEI initiatives.

Those interpretations had real consequences, new research from Columbia Business School’s Adina D. Sterling, Katherine W. Phillips Associate Professor of Business and Jennifer Dudley, a Postdoctoral Research Scholar suggests. Drawing on survey data from 505 HR professionals that took place in the year after the ruling, the researchers find that many employers were uncertain or mistaken about the ruling’s scope and, consequently, made precautionary changes to hiring practices. 

The result is what the researchers describe as a chilling effect, where ambiguity and perceived risk reshaped corporate hiring behavior.

A Higher Education Ruling Affects the Workplace

Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision, private employers were already prohibited from using race as a factor in hiring decisions. The ruling did not change that reality. The Court’s decision was clear in its scope, which applied only to higher education admissions.

Yet inside organizations, clarity was harder to come by. Sterling describes the decision as a watershed moment that forced corporate leaders, particularly those working in DEI, to grapple with how to respond.

Awareness of the decision was uneven. Just over half of respondents said they were familiar with the ruling when the survey was conducted in June and July of 2024. But among those who were aware, confusion was widespread. Half believed the decision applied to workplaces and not just  university admissions—a clear misinterpretation. Another 21 percent said they were unsure. Some, Dudley told CBS Insights, feared future political blowback.

The challenge, according to Sterling, wasn’t necessarily understanding what the ruling said, but what it might mean going forward. 

"The law is a living, breathing canon. It's not that there is a decision in June of 2023 and there's instant understanding. It's interpreted and then it gets co-opted to mean one thing or another, and it can be repurposed,” Sterling told CBS Insights.

That ambiguity was reinforced by the broader environment of media coverage, legal commentary, and ongoing political debates that framed the ruling as part of a larger shift in the DEI landscape. Dudley notes that by late 2023, there was already a sense that employers should be on the lookout, even though the decision itself did not regulate workplace practices.

These legal, cultural, and reputational signals are what companies were likely responding too, according to Dudley. They were also anticipating what might come next.

Confusion, Caution, and Real Hiring Changes

To understand how employers were interpreting and reacting to the ruling, Sterling and Dudley surveyed 505 HR professionals across U.S. companies in mid-2024. The study is descriptive and not causal, capturing how hiring managers understood the decision and what they reported doing in response. 

Overall, 62 percent of HR leaders in companies reported making at least one change to their hiring practices in anticipation of or response to the ruling. And companies that believed the decision applied to them were significantly more likely to make changes than those who understood its limited scope.

These changes appeared across the entire hiring process. The researchers found evidence of the following changes:

• Sourcing: Adjustments to job descriptions, diversity statements, and where jobs were advertised
• Screening: Changes to interview questions and evaluation criteria
• Selection: Shifts in diversity targeting and hiring decisions

In many cases, company leaders indicated they scaled back visible DEI commitments by removing or revising diversity language, altering recruitment strategies, and reconsidering how they built candidate pools.

The findings point to what the researchers describe as a chilling effect: Organizations pulling back from diversity-related practices not because they were legally required to, but because they perceived risk. Notably, they did so several months prior to the 2024 November election.

Why Employers Pulled Back

Misinterpretation of the law only explains part of the story.

Even among respondents who correctly understood that the ruling did not apply to workplaces, many still reported changes to hiring practices. Dudley points to several possible dynamics at play.

One is strategic alignment. Some companies may have already been ambivalent about DEI initiatives, viewing them as costly, performative, or misaligned with their priorities. For these firms, the ruling provided a convenient rationale to scale back.

Another is fear. Not necessarily fear of violating the law, but fear of becoming a target of lawsuits, public criticism, or political attention. “No one wants to get Tweeted at by a politician,” Dudley said. 

A third factor is the bandwagon effect. In uncertain environments, organizations often look to peers for cues. If prominent companies appear to be pulling back on DEI, others may follow because of perceived momentum. 

“Inertia is super powerful. Not everyone in our sample made changes, and doing nothing is often less costly than doing something,” Dudley said.

The changes observed in the study could reflect a mix of misunderstanding, preemptive risk management, or internal preferences, according to Sterling. What matters more is the outcome: companies took a decision scoped to university admissions and applied it to hiring.

More broadly, the findings highlight the fact that when legal guidance is ambiguous and the stakes feel high, firms tend to default to caution. They reduce exposure to what they perceive as dangerous, even if the underlying risk is unclear or misperceived.

Treat DEI Like Any Other Business Risk

For Sterling, the takeaway is that companies should respond more deliberately to legal developments.

DEI, she emphasizes, is not illegal. Anti-discrimination laws remain in place, and organizations still have both legal and strategic reasons to pursue fair hiring practices. The challenge is interpreting what fair means. 

Too often, DEI is treated as a special category of risk, and one that is separate from core business decisions. Sterling argues that this framing is part of the problem. Leaders, she suggests, should approach it the same way they approach any other operational decisions, by aligning it with the organization’s mission, vision, and values.  For organizations that can show the value of their DEI initiatives from a business standpoint, they have a much more defensible basis of argument if they are attacked legally. Ironically, it is harder for organizations that simply gesture at DEI initiatives without real impacts to their business to defend these practices. 

Changes to hiring practices—especially those that reduce outreach to groups historically overlooked—can shape who applies for jobs, how candidates perceive opportunities, and how students prepare for the workforce. 

Asked about how DEI will move forward, Sterling expressed concern. "Organizational inertia is real. Once it stops, it takes a lot to get the train moving again.”

In a volatile policy environment, the real divide is between companies reacting out of fear and those grounded in strategy. The organizations that understand why they are pursuing equitable hiring are likely to be able to sustain it and reap the potential benefits in the long term.