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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

#61

Post by ctdonath »

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…

It is shocking that one could be punished for hiring based on “wrong” color/gender. We spent decades getting past that, only to have it codified in law. “You’re great, but we’ll be punished if we hire you, because your skin is pale and you have testicles” is evil.

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

#62

Post by nverno »

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?

This is starting to sound similar to equity laws established in South Africa, which have not had good outcomes. Preferential treatment like this, not based on merit, is unfair and could breed a lot of resentment.

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

#63

Post by logicalmonster »

The funny thing is that any actually bigoted company has a built in out.

"Johnson, as the youngest member, the board has decided that you must identify as a woman for regulatory compliance."

What are woke progressives going to do, deny that a man can identify as whatever gender she wants?

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

#65

Post by sanity31415 »

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.

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

#66

Post by BrianOnHN »

radisb wrote: post #46
kenjackson wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The problem is that someone must be fired because he is a white male

Edit: deleted because original comment has changed.

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

#67

Post by throwawaysleep »

walls wrote: post #51
mountainriver wrote: post #24

I guess we’ve stopped hiring the best people for the job. Moves like this put the US at a competitive disadvantage. We can solve our inequality problems without making us weak. The US army took equal opportunity seriously long ago, their model works and can be replicated.

If we were ever at the point where companies were hiring the best people for the job, this wouldn't be necessary as the companies would already have a diverse board.

Assuming skill is equally distributed by race.

Except that everywhere, including when admission is solely based on performance on a test you can study for, there end up being massive racial disparities.

Other races need to be shoehorned in.

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

#68

Post by mynegation »

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 have an impression that HN readers are more libertarian than progressive.

The ambiguous part of this law that this is employment (or something close enough to employment) contingent on race and gender. Imagine a single woman of color on the board resigns and the seat must be filled. If the best candidate is a white male, he will be rejected based on gender and race.

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

#69

Post by captainredbeard »

baggy_trough wrote: post #17

Discrimination on the basis of race is always unethical.

This comment ten years ago would be agreed to by almost everyone in the United States. Not anymore; it is now fashionable to be racist against Whites. No more!

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

#70

Post by kovek »

ivalm wrote: post #58
kovek wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a board rejects a (very) competent person based on the person’s gender, race, sexuality, age, then… they lost a very competent person. That person will do great work outside of that board. Can we agree on this? Also, is that some sort of Nash equilibrium?

I don’t think that this formulation reflects the actual situation. Realistically you have a broad pool of near-identical performers (in a sense that your error in judgement is similar to difference in performance) mixed with some bad performers. The goal of the company is not to hire good, but to avoid the bad. So if someone isn’t bad then it’s fine to give preference based on some diversity metric, because you are j…

They still lose a (very) competent candidate, and that candidate will do great work elsewhere (and not for the board)
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