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California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

latimes.com

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Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#81

Post by BrianOnHN »

sanity31415 wrote: post #65
BrianOnHN wrote: post #20

What a shockingly sad interpretation from most (all at the time of writing) comments here. When did you ever have a job that you didn't learn 90% of what's needed, while on the job itself? Cries for meritocracy are woefully ignorant for this fact alone. If you want meritocracy, focus your energy on improving education. Until then, your worth is determined mostly by whether someone gives you a chance, which depends on…

> What a shockingly sad interpretation from most (all at the time of writing) comments here. It's shockingly sad to see people defending state discrimination based on race and sex.

How so?

If the state continues to allow a small subset of the population to discriminate based on race and sex, isn't that also the state defending discrimination?

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#82

Post by Sebb767 »

kenjackson wrote: post #29
kjksf wrote: post #13

Road the hell is paved with good intentions. As much as I support equality and diversity, I'm even more strongly opposed government over-reach. The state shouldn't have a say in who gets a job at a private (non owned by state) company. As the article state, I hope this will get over-turned by the courts. This would set a bad precedent. If the state can dictate the kind of person gets a highly coveted job, what else c…

Federal government already says you can't discriminate. They aren't saying, "you have to hire this person". They're saying you can't hire exclusively this type of person that currently dominates the top of society. Given that these boardrooms don't diversify themselves, what is the actual problem with it?

It's going to be one diverse person at a lot of those boards and they will get the stigma of being the person that was put there because the actual good candidates had the wrong skin color. No matter how qualified they might actually be, they can't escape the looks.

Plus, by making this a factor, you're just kindling actual racism by pitting white males against everyone else. The resentment created by rejecting someone for their gender or color of skin does not subside just because the attributes happen to be white and male.

I get the intention, but fighting racism with racism just doesn't work.

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#84

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

kenjackson wrote: post #29
kjksf wrote: post #13

Road the hell is paved with good intentions. As much as I support equality and diversity, I'm even more strongly opposed government over-reach. The state shouldn't have a say in who gets a job at a private (non owned by state) company. As the article state, I hope this will get over-turned by the courts. This would set a bad precedent. If the state can dictate the kind of person gets a highly coveted job, what else c…

Federal government already says you can't discriminate. They aren't saying, "you have to hire this person". They're saying you can't hire exclusively this type of person that currently dominates the top of society. Given that these boardrooms don't diversify themselves, what is the actual problem with it?

A national government requiring that hiring decisions be made on the basis of gender or race, and the response is "what is the actual problem with it?"

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#85

Post by newsclues »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #14

The comments here as I write this are quite shocking. I would have imagined that HN's readership would be quite progressive. Maybe not. I do not think it is unreasonable for a corporate board to be required to include at least one woman or at least one non-white person. I also think it's quite shocking that all-white-male boards are so common that this is even necessary. It's an artifact of institutional racism and s…

Institutional racism, as this proposed, is not the answer.

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#86

Post by throwawaysleep »

RheingoldRiver wrote: post #40
baremetal wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what you are saying is that women and people of color are not capable of competing on merit? they have to be installed by decree? i am insulted.

It's not that they're incapable of competing on merit; it's that the established institutions are unwilling to recognize based on merit, and a coercive outside force is required to counterbalance the entrenched racism & sexism until we're at a point where society can function on a truly meritocratic basis on its own.

So create a company full of passed over women and minorities and clobber the existing ones.

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#87

Post by [deleted] »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #14

The comments here as I write this are quite shocking. I would have imagined that HN's readership would be quite progressive. Maybe not. I do not think it is unreasonable for a corporate board to be required to include at least one woman or at least one non-white person. I also think it's quite shocking that all-white-male boards are so common that this is even necessary. It's an artifact of institutional racism and s…

[deleted]

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#88

Post by jmpman »

Let’s say a 10 person board is populated with 9 white male board members. They need to appoint the 10th board member. It can’t be a white male? So, for this specific role, they must make a hiring decision based upon the individual’s membership in a class, such as sex, race or color. That seems to violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#89

Post by aeturnum »

kjksf wrote: post #13

Road the hell is paved with good intentions. As much as I support equality and diversity, I'm even more strongly opposed government over-reach. The state shouldn't have a say in who gets a job at a private (non owned by state) company. As the article state, I hope this will get over-turned by the courts. This would set a bad precedent. If the state can dictate the kind of person gets a highly coveted job, what else c…

The road to hell is good paved with good intentions, but I don't really see hell over the horizon on this one.

Demographics are funny because they're really easy to satisfy. People come from many backgrounds.

This is just one of many restrictions on individual choice we make for the sake of social cohesion. All of us might choose to work for below minimum wage, but there are real risks there, so we ban it. All of understand how one might end up with a board of all white men, but there are risks there as well, so now it's banned. It does not seem like a meaningful restriction for any serious enterprise.

Re: California outlawed all-white-male boardrooms – reshaping corporate America

#90

Post by throwawaysleep »

BrianOnHN wrote: post #44
LeoPanthera wrote: post #14

The comments here as I write this are quite shocking. I would have imagined that HN's readership would be quite progressive. Maybe not. I do not think it is unreasonable for a corporate board to be required to include at least one woman or at least one non-white person. I also think it's quite shocking that all-white-male boards are so common that this is even necessary. It's an artifact of institutional racism and s…

I agree with you, about HN's audience, which is I guess what "bro culture" devolves into, and that the idea isn't crazy. Board room implies scale. If you don't have diversity at scale, in so many senses of the word, your doomed to fail anyway. So many knee jerk reactions are a sad reflection of this community, though.

> If you don't have diversity at scale, in so many senses of the word, your doomed to fail anyway.

The market would have slaughtered tech firms if this were true.

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