After three years, I finally feel compelled to speak about what I personally witnessed inside Paramount’s hiring system, specifically within corporate HR and recruiting.
In my experience, the company enforced hiring practices that were not only deeply uncomfortable but also appear to conflict with federal and New York employment law. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the New York State Human Rights Law, and the NYC Human Rights Law all prohibit making employment decisions based on race. Yet recruiters, including myself, were repeatedly instructed to submit “60 percent diverse slates” or hiring teams would be blocked from making an offer. Even more concerning, we were told that at least one of those candidates had to be Black in order for the slate to be accepted.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with diversity goals when they are done correctly. Recruiting outreach to under represented groups is legal and encouraged. What we were asked to do went far beyond that and entered the territory of quota based race focused candidate selection. That is the exact type of practice that regulators warn can violate anti discrimination laws.
What made it worse was that Paramount later removed all demographic information from candidate profiles while still requiring the 60 percent quota. That meant recruiters were effectively pushed to make subjective assumptions about a candidate’s race. Speaking for myself, I found it unethical, uncomfortable, and legally dangerous for everyone involved.
Many of us raised concerns. I was told that internal legal rejected the original policy and that senior leadership sought outside legal justification to move forward anyway. Whether that is true or not, the pressure to comply never stopped.
This review is not written out of bitterness. It is written out of concern. Paramount presents itself as a champion of inclusion, but the policies I witnessed created the opposite effect. In my view the people most harmed were the candidates who deserved to be evaluated for their qualifications rather than their skin color.
I hope speaking up encourages Paramount to re evaluate its hiring practices so future employees and candidates do not have to experience the same situation.
