
California may mandate a woman in the boardroom, but businesses are fighting it - malvosenior
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/12/california-may-mandate-a-woman-in-the-boardroom-but-businesses-are-fighting-it/
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scarface74
Maybe I’m just hopelessly naive, but I really don’t see most boards in
corporate America purposely conspiring to only have White men on thier board.
Yes, I am a member of the “underrepresented minority”.

I think it may be more of a function that you choose people you know — if
that’s the case somehow encourage people to broaden thier search or the
classic “pipeline problem”. For that, I’ve got nothing.

Not on the board level, but I use to work for a company where out of 250
employees, I was the only Black guy. I don’t think it was due to racism, but
they were based in an area of TN where the overwhelming majority of people
were White. I would also assume that most Black professionals who were raised
and went to school in small town TN would leave as soon as possible.

When the company created a satellite office in a more diverse city, they had a
more diverse talent pool.

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wilsonnb3
I agree with your perspective that it's largely a problem of social bubbles.

However, I think that forcing inclusions of people outside of the usual bubble
will expand the bubble over time. That's the goal of this kind of legislation,
I think.

It will also potentially have side effects like under qualified people being
chosen for jobs because of the color of their skin or their gender. Some
people see this as an unacceptable assault on the idea of a meritocracy, while
others see it as a reasonable price to pay to push society away from sexism
and racism by expanding the bubbles.

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tropo
It's also the fact that you can't get rid of sexism and racism by legislating
a requirement for... sexism and racism! You can't get away from being sexist
and racist by adding more sexism and racism.

On top of that: you keep everybody in a sex/race mindset, you create jealousy,
you give the unfavored groups an actual reason to boil with fury (not helping
relations here...), and you give everybody a reason to doubt the
accomplishments of the favored groups.

This is toxic.

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scarface74
I have mixed feelings. I am against outright quotas for the reasons you state,
but I’m all for expanding the search for qualified people and deemphasizing
internal referrals.

I got my start because there was one company that specifically targeted
internships from HBCUs. You don’t have to be Black to go to an HBCU, but few
White people choose to go there[1]. Is that any less fair than companies that
don’t look past a few elite schools?

When I got my first job as a team lead and was in a position to hire people on
contract, my manager told me, that the company needed “another me”. I told my
manager that I had a former coworker who was looking for a job and I trusted
him completely. My manager was willing to hire him sight unseen and pay him
more than the other contractors just based on my recommendation. I would much
rather hire someone I knew. This feedback keeps the outsiders on the outside,
but from my own self interest, why wouldn’t I hire someone I knew and trusted?

[1] I remember talking to a White friend of mine who told me that he was going
to a (worse) college out of the city because there were “no four year schools
in the city”. He acted like the HBCU didn’t even exist.

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gamblor956
This article is flamebait. The legislation passed the state Senate but is not
expected to even get a hearing in the state Assembly before the expiration of
the current legislative session.

Even if passed, because the law specifically mandates sexual/gender
preferences it will face a constitutional challenge and be suspended pending
full review/appeals by the CA court system.

Finally, if it survives all that...it would apply to any business that is
incorporated, HQ'd, or _otherwise does business_ with California. And would
promptly get struck down by a federal court...

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zaroth
_“assuming the idea could survive a likely court challenge.”_

...does appear in the first sentence, after all.

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zaroth
The question is why did anyone vote for this at all? I did see at least it was
limited to public companies, but I would think you have zero understanding of
business to think you should prescribe the gender mix of the Board.

This would be a massive disadvantage for companies that this applied to. The
Board is an extremely limited number of people making incredibly crucial
decisions based on their expertise.

You want the absolutely most qualified people on a well run Board. Imagine
having a single opening and knowing exactly who you should hire for it, them
agreeing to take on the position, and not being able to hire them... _Because
they identify as the incorrect gender._

Why should the Board room be forced to have a specific gender balance? Why is
it _gender_ specifically which should be balanced and not other factors? Why
just for the Board and not for the whole company? What about any or all other
subdivisions within the company?

Why target Boardrooms in particular for this policy?

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pmdulaney
It seems too late for that; in the context of the sexual revolution, any human
can now claim to be female.

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humantiy
This doesn't seem like a good idea. If this passed I would think you would
question if you were hired not because of your knowledge and merit, but
because you filled a quota. For publicly traded companies board members also
have to be voted in. What is to stop shareholders from not voting someone in
knowing that this was a 'quota board member?' Would the company be at fault
(ie face penalty) in that scenario if they are publicly traded?

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vannevar
Another way to increase the diversity and quality of corporate governance
would be to outlaw the practice of interlocking boards, where the same people
serve as directors on multiple boards. Besides increasing the chances of
illegal collusion and insider trading, this practice promotes groupthink,
tends to concentrate wealth, and discourages diversity.

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vannevar
Would the downvote care to share an opinion? It improves discussion when there
are two sides.

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joelhoffman
I didn't downvote you, but I didn't understand your proposal. Are you
suggesting prohibiting anyone from serving on more than one board, or from
joining a board that already contains someone who is also on a board they're
already on?

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vannevar
The former. One person can serve on one board only. Perhaps an exception to
serve on nonprofit boards.

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belorn
Sweden is making similar suggestion, and I would like that governments first
tried lead by example. The state is the single largest employer in the nation
and for almost all positions there is not 50/50 gender ration. Compared to the
private sector it seems to be on average worse, with many of the top 10 worst
gender segregated professions being government paid positions.

I am not unreasonable, they could simply set out that by 2020 they should have
a policy that any new hiring should consider how gender segregated a open
position is, by 2030 a policy with active measures to correct gender
segregation and by 2040 if the situation has not improved then mandated
affirmative action and fines for non-compliant departments.

Currently there is not even a policy which honestly is a bit of a low bar
given how much talking politicians do about diversity.

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deadmetheny
Yet another reason it'd be insanity to incorporate in California.

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chomp
It's not even incorporating in California, merely having your headquarters
there will cause your company to be burdened by this law.

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devoply
I guess the step after this is greater representation of minorities in the
board room. In general there does need to be greater representation of
minorities in upper management. That does not happen as much as it should.

