California Law Requiring Board Diversity Is Struck Down
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Absolutely insane that to create a board I have to first ask someone "so to verify your qualifications, you are a man who likes other men correct?
Or rather, I'm sorry, if not that, you were born a woman and became a man? correct? Great you got the job!"
These laws were insane and are taking us backwards while hiding under the guise of "forward progress".
Not sure how thoroughly they have to verify that, either...
1: https://twitter.com/TitaniaMcGrath/status/150693736999545651...
> It requires publicly traded companies based in California to have board members from underrepresented communities including people of several races and ethnic groups and people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.
It's not all about race. But there is a large racial component.
For those in favor of a law like this imagine if the law had races, sex, or whatever flipped. You have to hire a white person or a male. Would you still be in favor of it?
Is that not the explicit or implicit reasoning people have for this? They call it "reverse racism" because they see it as the best way to reverse historical racism and sexism
Many of the people who support this law do believe you need to be racist to fix past racism. Ibram X. Kendi, for example, said "The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination."
My question, however, was more about a slippery slope. Once you allow blatant discrimination like this in the law it is only a matter of time until it is used in a way you don't like. Some people think there are millions of white supremcists in the US. If that is the case and racial discrimination becomes legal, will these people still be in support of laws like this when they require whites to be hired? I would guess not.
As this is such an emotionally charged topic, they're likely not thinking with such long term logic. It's more of a reactionary thing
"Racism" was invented by Trotsky: a Bolshevik who applied Karl Marx's ideas about class oppression to race. The idea behind Racism is that you have an oppressing race that is Racist towards the oppressed races. The English dictionaries have attempted to change the definition to mean something more like racial bigotry but that's not how people use it. The behavior of the policy makers who argue for this kind of thing still matches Trotsky's ideas.
If you don't like this then stop using their words, what you want to talk about is called "racial bigotry."
Think about how that person feels knowing they are the most qualified to do a job but don't get that job because they were "born the wrong way."
Imagine what that does to the democratic discriminated against: puts them back for generations.
Trotsky did not invent racism. People discriminated against others due to their race before Trotsky was even born.
I don't care if you want to call it racism or racial bigotry or whatever. It exists and it can happen against all races, by any race, in every country.
Getting to?
> The reasons behind the disproportionate gender ratio of directors is a subject of much debate. A survey of more than 4000 directors found that male directors over the age of 55 cited a lack of qualified female candidates as the main reason behind the stagnant number of female directors.[5] In contrast, in the same study, female directors and younger male directors considered the male-dominated networking that often led to the appointment of directors to be the reason behind women's slow progress.[5]
> 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.
Constitutional issues aside, Gavin Newsome saying that this law is a win for “racial justice and empowerment” seems like trickle down economics. The premise behind these efforts seems to be that if you appoint say an Asian American to the Board of a Fortune 500 company, collectively these people will steer society in ways that will help recent Asian immigrants in Chinatown. That seems bizarre to me. Elite minorities are still elites. They went to the same elite schools, have very similar elite world views. And they often have limited connections to the people in their minority groups who are the ones who really need help.
I’m a first generation Bangladeshi immigrant and I have close family that’s part of NYC’s large low income Bangladeshi immigrant community. And even then I think it’s silly to think that putting me on a corporate board would meaningfully address the plight of recent immigrants. I went to school with white elites and share most of my worldview with white elites. I wouldn’t do anything any differently than they would. I would probably go out of my way to not do anything differently.
Good law: Boards cannot be uni-gender.
Bad law: Each board must have at least one woman.
They both accomplish the same thing, but one discriminates on sex, and the other doesn't.
Another example are laws targeting blacks. There are historical wrongs to be righted. Laws should, for example, convey benefits to individuals whose ancestors were slaves, were denied rights under the GI bill, or otherwise were specifically unfairly harmed. That's different from a law looking at skin color directly. It might seem subtle -- it's the same communities -- but one of those does something for bad reasons (and is likely to be found illegal), and one of those does something for good reasons (and is likely to be fully legal).
It matters. I support the court ruling. I also support the intent of the law. The legislature ought to go back to the drawing board, and write a law which does the same thing the right way.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-11-04/l-a-coun...
I believe the goal of the authors of the law is to allow for all-female leadership teams to exist while explicitly prohibiting all-male leadership teams.
To your points, all-female organizations would not be criminalized:
1) First of all, these should be civil laws, not criminal laws. Having this be a criminal law would be insane.
2) Second of all, these are about corporate boards for publicly-traded corporations. All-female associations are permitted. Even all-female publicly-traded corporations would be permitted, although I'm unaware of any. Board members are independent individuals who provide oversight. Most aren't insiders. It's fine to have a female board member for an all-male organization, or vice-versa. To your nursing example, if there were a publicly-traded nursing corporation, it's even helpful since half of patients are males.
3) Third of all, LA Times is not all-female; I'm not sure where that comes from. LA County is a government, not a publicly-traded corporation, and the law doesn't apply.
The right idea which should be behind the law -- which is sensible -- is that corporate oversight should understand the impact on everyone, and should represent the workforce, customers, etc. It's sensible. I suspect it's good for shareholder value too.
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/sunday-finance/all-female-bo...
https://qz.com/2076884/spanx-commits-to-all-female-board-aft...
https://www.atratoroof.com/team
etc etc
Stanley Motta is an electronics store. Both men and women work there and buy electronics. AIFM is an energy company. Ditto. Spanx is the only one on your short list where a supermajority of stakeholders are women. Even with Spanx, one could argue that slimming undergarments are for couples, where having one male voice in the room could help make sensible decisions. Seems like for those oddball cases, it's mostly an upside to diversify representation, even if it's in the opposite direction.
I see a few problems:
- Boards mostly come from an old boys network. I have not seen board members who were exceptional individuals so much as well-connected individuals. Even "diversity hires" -- and they're called that -- seem to pick from a tiny number of individuals who managed to break into that network, rather than individuals from minority communities. It's not a meritocracy.
- Boards don't represent the customers or employees, and often do things which harm some groups. Having all voices in that room helps.
- And so on...
Those sorts of arguments align doing good, doing well, and reducing (legal) corruption.
If I wanted to improve the law, I'd try to come up with ways to have representation from African American inner city communities, poor Southern rural communities, immigrant communities, and a whole slew of other groups who are traditionally underrepresented. I'll emphasizes communities -- people who are aware of culture and day-to-day life.
"Good" laws also do less tokenizing, and are less likely to become obsolete:
- The argument that a woman is on a board because... she's a woman is pretty stigmatizing. The argument that diverse perspectives maximize shareholder value is not.
- If, in 2050, we have 50/50 representation, or a minority group moves into the majority, balanced laws self-correct.
Please stop using "straight white" as a pejorative.
But this is probably not the last time a politician gets a crazy idea.