DEI in Business

DEI in Business: Legal & Ethical Issues will be held on Friday, April 12, 2024 at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. 

Co-sponsored by the Department of Legal Studies & Business Ethics (LGST) and the Wharton Coalition for Equity and Opportunity (CEO), the workshop aims to foster in-progress scholarship and connect an interdisciplinary community of scholars working on legal and ethical issues related to equity and opportunity in business.

Over the past several decades, there has been growing business interest in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives; ways to address persistent societal gaps in wealth, access to financial services, and healthcare; and efforts to mitigate or remediate technology-induced discrimination and inequality. Yet the future of some of these efforts is uncertain. Recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, challenges to civil rights laws that currently structure private sector actions, and political attacks on businesses engaged in such efforts have made scholarship in this field even more important. 

The workshop will focus on future directions for equity and opportunity against this backdrop. Each accepted paper will be assigned a discussant, who will provide feedback and lead a discussion among the author and other workshop participants.