OPINION:
Many decades ago, as the nation wrestled with the complicated legacy left behind by discredited doctrines such as “separate by equal,” someone somewhere had the bright idea that the perfect way to reach redress would be to set aside a certain number of positions available in any situation for so-called minority hires.
That led to the establishment of quotas which, in the ivory tower, seemed like a simple, effective solution to a complex problem. It wasn’t.
The United States Supreme Court eventually found its way to ruling discrimination in favor of a class of people based on race and gender is as objectionable as discriminating against them.
That happened almost 50 years ago. The law concerning quotas remains in flux thanks to a few more recent high court decisions but, in the main, they’re on the way out. Or at least they’re supposed to be. Time and again the “woke folk” try to find ways to slip them in through the back door by calling them something else.
Fortunately, not everyone who favors the constitutional prescription of making the American workplace race- and gender-neutral is asleep at the switch. There are a few groups out there looking out for our interests.
One of them, called Judicial Watch, is rightfully crowing over its recent victory in of all places a California court which struck down a 2018 state law requiring every publicly held corporation registered in the state to have at least one person on its board of directors “who self-identifies her gender as a woman” by the last day of 2019.
That’s a quota, plain and simple, as is the law’s additional mandate that, depending on the number of board positions, needed to have at least three directors who identified as women by the last day of 2021. The group brought suit, arguing the requirement violated the equal protection clause of the state constitution. California Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis agreed, enjoining the law. Judicial Watch’s lawyers “determine[d] that SB 826 violates the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution and is thus enjoined,” she ruled.
Call it a victory for freedom, at least of sorts. California, the nation’s most progressive place, tried to tell public companies who they had to have on their boards of directors. Another law, requiring racial and ethnic diversity on corporate boards was similarly enjoined in April.
It’s not the law but “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” seems to be a pretty good standard by which to measure such things. That’s what Judge Duffy-Lewis found to be the case here writing the purpose of the law, to put “more women on boards demonstrated that the legislature’s actual purpose was gender-balancing, not remedying discrimination.”
This is a blow to the “woke,” let’s hope the first of many to come.
They’ve been trying to use the free market system against its best interests by having corporations — flying under a banner proclaiming they are ESG friendly — to enact policies the progressive political community would like to see in place but can achieve through legislation or government edict. They’re trying to take control of corporate boards to make them a place where progressive policies, favored by the likes of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, will take precedence over what is in the best interests of the shareholders.
Fortunately, the law, at least as it is understood right now, won’t let them.
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