L.A. judge rules LGBT corporate diversity law unconstitutional

Those at the top will often prioritize their feelings over profit potential. Corporations are not true profit maximizers, that's a total myth. It's one of the reasons why WFH wasn't more popular earlier, and why some companies are trying to force back-to-office to the point it causes some of their employees to quit.

People also tout these studies for getting more women in business leadership. in reality that's a weird argument, women or lgbt or people of color don't need to be better in order to be accepted, they should be accepted by default. Maybe business culture with its rigid and often stupid conventions and demands has a lot to do with it. Things like, how business people socialize, what they 're expected to wear, what business gifts they send etc.

Seems to not make much difference in financial results, either way. Wharton study:[1]

[1] https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/will-gender-dive...

Is the native part of me more deserving of a contract than the Latin part?

If I was with a guy the night before instead of a woman am I more beneficial to a company? Am I even more valuable on the odd night I’m with a trans person?

Am I more beneficial with my Paraguayan passport instead of a Canadian passport?

Diversity should just be called what it is, bigotry.

If Hollywood movies start getting a lot better with the new diversity requirements for Oscar eligibility, presumably this will serve as an example for every other industry.

While that may be true, it isn't the case that more diversity necessarily makes a more profitable organisation. It's also a pretty dangerous game to play; diversity policies can be, and often are, implemented in a ham-fisted or corrupt way that destroys value.

Simply look at the havoc that BEE has wreaked on South Africa's economy and especially the public service.

I' m left-handed but I would never think of identifying myself as being part of some diffuse group of people 'united' by handedness. In the same vein I do not see why gays, lesbians and bisexuals are to be seen as part of a single group given that as far as I gather there is often not that much love [no pun intended] between the former two - it is not as if gays and lesbians have much in common.

Do you truly identify as 'an LGBT person' - implying that those who claim to be spokespeople for 'this group' also speak for you - or do you just see yourself as a gay, lesbian or bisexual man or woman? Or, to put it even more bluntly, would you not rather see yourself as a person who happens to be gay or lesbian or bisexual, just like I see myself as a person who happens to be left-handed? I may sometimes grumble about some object which could have easily be made to fit left- and right-handed people alike [1] but I would never join a left-handed political action committee, nor would I trust anyone to 'speak for me' in such a context because I don't want to be used as a pawn in some ideological/political struggle.

[1] If you ever start a cheese packing facility make sure to put a peel corner on the left and right hand side of the package, the latter is far more useable for left-handed people...

Based on personal observations, innate aptitude and interest doesn't seem to be aligned. Eg, one of the more amazing minds I've ever met was contained in a woman who just didn't have the competitive glint in her eye to make herself successful. Sad story in many ways.

But - if that observation is true - then diversity policy quotas will break the correlation. At the moment, about half the aptitude is in women, some percent in various minority groups in rough proportion to their prevalence, etc. Companies better at surfacing talent will naturally be more diverse. Companies that forcibly make themselves more diverse through a quota will ironically probably regress to the mean level of competence and perform worse.

If diverse boards do better it's because you have to be doing very well already to do something as stupid as picking board members for their sexual orientation.

> White people were the most opposed to considering race and ethnicity in hiring and promotion: 78 percent said only qualifications should be considered. But a majority of black respondents (54 percent) and Hispanic respondents (69 percent) also said race and ethnicity shouldn’t be considered.

These are policies are being driven mostly by liberal whites oh behalf of racial minorities, but those minorities themselves mostly oppose such policies.

Oh for sure it's the right decision. If even the legislation's intention was successful, forcing this matter will only go to create more radicalization and make the situation worse.

>I anecdotally recall studies that found organizations with greater diversity deliver better financial results, and that public companies have a responsibility to their shareholders.

Regardless of the issue you wish to prop up. There is always a study that says it will work.

>It's important to state this because businesses exist primarily to create profits, not promote social movements. There's a legitimate business justification to diversity policies.

Businesses should not even consider diversity. There is a problem in some businesses in that they do discriminate. They discriminate against and that's the ideal goal of what should be fixed. Or should it? If we are in a free market and Business 1 refuses to hire LGBT. Business 2 hires those and will eventually pick up good people that give them a competitive advantage.

Government coming in and using force to make Business 1 take LGBT on the board... That's not going to work out.

Reduce the difficulty of proving discrimination, so there's less plausible deniability

Laws can’t make people love each other. We have to make that choice on our own. We learn to accept and include others through our life experiences and the examples set by leaders in our society. If you want people to change their behavior, set a good example for others to follow and encourage others to follow suit.

1) intergenerational trauma needs to be called what it is which is neglect and child abuse.

2) PC victimhood culture and the politicians who take advantage of it to convince people they just need more handouts instead of to stop abusing their children and take responsibility for their lives.

There is real discrimination in society things like Japanese internment but you don’t see any issue with Japanese people lifting themselves out of poverty.

> What argument is there to explain the underrepresentation that doesn't ultimately confirm that it is actually discrimination?

There are myriad reasons applicable to different groups. Age and immigration status are big ones. Almost all of the so-called “bamboo ceiling” (the theory that Asians are underrepresented in management and board positions) can be explained by the fact that the older cohorts from which board members are drawn typically have a lot fewer Asians than the 6-7% average for the overall population, and the fact that most Asians are first generation immigrants and many don’t speak English fluently or lack US citizenship.

Similarly for Hispanics, a lot of disparities are simply due to recency of immigration. Lots of Hispanics are recent immigrants from very poor countries who come here for economic reasons. Within a couple of generations, however, Hispanics more or catch up to native born whites: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353.

A lot of these “lack of proportionality proves discrimination” arguments are just lazy and don’t compare like with like.

All that’s to say that if shareholders (who theoretically appoint and are represented by the board) as a group have legitimate and real preference differences from the average person from the these other minority groups, you can get easily get boards that are unrepresentative of the minority groups.

Now, as to why those shareholders might have preferences that differ from those minority groups so much, you can start making class based or structural inequality/racism arguments. But I’ve written enough :)

Why do you believe that all positions in all domains should be perfectly proportional with the underlying population across the six dimensions you've decided to care about? Is that reasonable?

That is not to say that discrimination is imaginary. It is not to say we should ignore it. It is to say that disproportionate outcomes are not evidence of discrimination. In other words, the fact that 20% of Nobel prize winners are Jews is not evidence of a global Jewish cabal. Nor should you stay up at night wondering where all the white rappers are.

If you actually want to help disadvantaged groups, focus on existing programs that don't effectively serve those groups. Like public schools. How can we make public schools work better?

The truly inane thing about mandating one black/gay/woman/whatever on every board is that those people won't be disadvantaged. They aren't going to invite people off the street to sit on their boards. It's just cosmetic bullshit.

I ask in a meaningful way, not to spark an argument. It's just that this is so confusing.

Like I did not grow up with the hassle or hate (with exception of a few racist remarks made to me growing up after being asked my background) that my brown family members and friends encountered and still encounter today, but I could still benefit from legislation like this? It just seems off.

Also, couldn't people just game this and say they're xyz or how is this proven? If it weren't by self identification, birth certificates seem like they'd be an issue. For example, because my father was black but light skinned my grandmother got away with putting caucasian down on his birth certificate thinking it'd benefit him somehow in life, but if you saw him you'd say he's black. So what is he and his offspring considered officially when his whole life he has identified as black and my siblings and I as mixed?

Idk this just sounds weird to me

Edit: Sorry to OP. Not directly speaking to your pointing out of this being unconstitutional in California. Just that it's the first post I saw summarizing the legislation and was commenting on that

The issue here is that people from over represented groups have historically and presently received an unearned lift to their prospects of success, and everyone else has the complementary push against them. Trace this back to the families of one taking wealth in the past from the families of the other one or not, your question is very discordant from the reality of our society.

I'm not saying there is no prejudice against women or other minorities. Only that it's not easy to look at statistics and conjure up always-correct reasons behind the statistics.

1) The lowest level are the rank-and-file employees. These are individual contributors and middle management. These are the youngest employees given their lack of experience. Because they're the youngest, they've grown up with the most opportunities for traditionally unrepresented groups and thus are the most diverse group.

2) The second level is upper management. These people are older than the low-level employees and are slightly less diverse.

3) The last level, the board level, is largely made up of corporate retirees and are thus the oldest group. Given the lack of opportunity this generation experienced if you weren't part of a specific demographic, it's no surprise the board level is not diverse. The duties of a board member require experience in running a corporation and corporate governance. There just isn't a diverse set of people to draw from due to the average age of qualified people looking to be board members.

If boards are composed of people chosen based on their colour and ethnicity, that's not just odd, it's racist. Affirmative action should extend only so far.

It's the basis of Western (sub-)civilisation: Enlightenment Values.

It's most definitely not "common sense" because it took us (the human civilisation) several millenia to arrive to these values.

Fortunately, they're spreading.

New boogeyman just dropped.