Date: March 14, 2016 To: GM Leadership From: Jordan Adams Subject: Avoiding Discrimination In 1984 General Motors reached a settlement with EEOC for $42.4 million. At the time, federal officials said it was the largest employment discrimination case to be settled outside of court. GM stated that they will be promoting women and minorities from within the company. General Motors must treat women and minorities as equal as they treat the men. By law they are required to treat everyone equal, and when they don’t, they have a risk of causing a law suit. GM needs to provide resources for all people to have access to, so they can gain knowledge of the company’s policies and practices. Not only does General Motors promise to promote women and minorities, they go above and beyond by providing an additional $15 million primarily towards minorities, and women to help send employees to college to help provide for their families. According to the New York Times “Members of the "affected class," the blacks, women and Hispanic employees, are to be given preference in the distribution of the education assistance funds.” On top of that, they also provided nearly $9 million in training for 250 women and minorities to give them better opportunities with the company. General Motors has gone above and beyond since they agreed to treat each other equally. GM has created a company who is focused on treating each other with respect and equality they deserve. Employees have taken it in their own hands to create social groups to help encourage and support each other. General Motors has gone beyond the legal requirements in nearly every aspect of the company since this settlement in the early 1980’s. The average number of women on the board of directors for most companies are only about 10%, but when it comes to GM they have one third of their directors are now women. There are many ways GM can avoid illegal discrimination. One way would be promoting a large percent of minorities and women into positions of power in the company. With the larger amount of minorities and women in executive roles, it would be obvious that GM treats every one the same. Another way would be by increasing pay for the women and minorities to be equal to the rate of pay of the men in the company. Creating a training program to help people understand diversity is another way that can help the company avoid illegal discrimination. General Motors has created resource groups for women and nearly every possible form of minority they have working for them.