MORE OF THIS, PLEASE: State “anti-woke” law rattles employer diversity programs: are they on the way out?
But labor and employment lawyers and other advisers in the human resources field say the law has created a legal minefield for private and public sector employers. If employees do end up feeling discomfited by the concepts and statements conveyed during training sessions, the new law gives them the right to sue the employer. . . .
Some labor and employment lawyers who represents private sector employers believe the training programs have little or no future in the state.
“Diversity, equity and inclusion training will be a thing of the past in the State of Florida,” said Leonard K. Samuels, a labor and employment and business litigation lawyer for the Berger Singerman firm in Fort Lauderdale.
“It’s risky to do it; it’s a hornet’s nest,” Samuels said. He added that the programs “are at great risk of no longer being part of corporate America or in the state of Florida.”
Since the legislation is “hot off the press,” Samuels said, “companies are all going to do their own analysis of this.”
The key questions: whether the training programs will need to be drastically modified, or scrapped altogether.
Scrapping them would be no loss.