Diversity & inclusion: Make sure your good intentions are legal.

• Position: Nuts & Bolts

Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act forbids employers from basing employment decisions on an individual's race, color, religion, sex or national origin. But the U.S. Supreme Court has twice upheld an employer's right to voluntarily adopt race- and gender-conscious employment policies that the employer thinks will remedy inherent workforce imbalances.

In some cases, however, lower courts have struck down such affirmative action policies if they trampled on the rights of male and nonminority employees. Such plans have lost because Title VII doesn't say that diversity supersedes discrimination based on protected characteristics (race, sex, etc.).

Selecting a candidate simply because he or she belongs to a race you would like better represented in your company may mean "reverse discrimination." The biggest mistake employers make is to adopt casual and unwritten affirmative action practices without considering whether these practices are lawful.

Diversity: Your...