After Coca-Cola received a stern warning from a top GOP lawyer last month, it paused its anti-white discrimination policy that would have punished the company’s outside law firms for not hiring the “right” number of black and minority lawyers.
But one item in Law.com’s report about Coke’s canceling the wacky idea, conceived by former general counsel Bradley Gayton, was this: The company will pay Gayton, who lasted less than a year in the job, $12 million for a yearlong consulting gig.
How one lands that kind of work after embarrassing the company is anyone’s guess. But given the company’s other embarrassing moves of late — it told employees to be “less white” — perhaps Gayton’s remuneration is standard company policy.
Yesterday, Law.com reported that nearly a dozen company lawyers quit during the eight months Gayton worked there.
Mum’s the Word
The company would not, Gayton announced in January, retain firms that did not hire enough black and minority lawyers. Gayton abruptly quit the company on April 21. On April 27, writing on behalf of the Project for Fair Representation, top GOP lawyer C. Boyden Gray warned incoming general counsel Monica Howard Douglas that the policy was illegal.
The same day, the company’s “global legal team” listened to the first address from Douglas, Law.com reported.
“They wanted to know why Gayton had stepped down as GC on April 21, after only eight months on the job, to serve as a consultant to Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey,” the website reported:
They wanted to know why Coca-Cola was paying Gayton $12 million over the next year as part of his consulting arrangement. They also were curious about the fate of the bold diversity initiative that Gayton announced earlier this year.
Unfortunately for the inquisitive members of Coca-Cola’s legal team — and for more than a few outsiders following the story — Douglas remained tight-lipped about Gayton’s resignation and substantial compensation for his new behind-the-scenes role, according to a source at the company who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity. …
“The question came up about Bradley and [his] compensation and what happened. Her response was, ‘We’re moving forward. I don’t want to look back. I’m in this role now,’” the source said.
Gayton, who is black, received a $4 million signing bonus for his “consulting,” and will receive $666,666 a month through April 2022, the website reported.
Yet “at least 11 members of the legal department, including several in-house leaders, parted ways with the Atlanta-based beverage giant” during his short tenure, Law.com also reported.
Gayton landed at Coke in September last year.
Be Less White
Gayton’s anti-white hiring mandate, issued three months before his departure, was remarkably candid.
“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,” he wrote.
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.
Yet its candor was hardly surprising given Coke’s equally frank expression of distaste for white employees.
In February, an insider revealed that the soft-drink giant forced employees to imbibe “anti-racism” training concocted by a leftist race hustler.
The training urged employees “to be less white” by being “less arrogant,” “less oppressive,” and “less defensive,” among other things, a not-so-subtle way of saying that whites are arrogant, oppressive, and defensive.
The training also said whites must “break with apathy” and “break with white solidarity.”
