I work at a small consulting firm that has been rapidly growing over the past few years. Because of our still relatively small size, I have opportunities to speak with the company owners about different policies. Recently, I had a meeting with my HR rep and one of the owners to discuss our parental leave policy.
For the meeting, I prepared a small PowerPoint deck with data on parental leave for similar companies in the area and highlighted some benefits of parental leave. During my research, I found that lower-income and minority groups benefit more from paid leave due to traditionally lacking support systems and wealth to live off one income. Given that diversity is one of our company's core values, I thought it was important to mention this in our discussion.
However, as soon as I brought up the topic of diversity, my HR manager interrupted and said that it could not be part of our discussion. She claimed that companies considering diversity when setting policies always offer worse benefits. I pushed back, saying that ignoring color or background isn't appropriate, but she dismissed my point and replied by saying "if something happened to you as a child. I'm sorry it shouldn't have." Additionally, she made several insensitive remarks, such as "I have hired lots of colored people," and accused me of being political for wanting to discuss diversity.
How would you handle a situation like this, where your HR manager acts this way and your boss/owner allows such conduct?
Edit* Also, reiterated multiple times, I am not asking for employees to be treated differently, but advocate for a policy that is inclusive of a diverse workforce as much as they deem necessary. I never once said this is the amount of time you need to give or anything along those lines. I even started my discussion with a clear expectation that " I only want to plant a seed in you all to consider looking into our policy and updating it if they think it's necessary."