r/moderatepolitics • u/ShivasRightFoot • 26d ago

US appeals court rejects Nasdaq's diversity rules for company boards Culture War

https://apnews.com/article/nasdaq-sec-dei-diversity-board-a3b8803a646a62aeb2733bbd4603e670
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u/-Boston-Terrier- 26d ago

I don't agree with forcing companies to be sufficiently DEI but on the other hand Nasdaq, Inc is a private company. I see no good reason they shouldn't be allowed to list only companies who meet their DEI requirements - even if I think those requirements are stupid.

Any company that doesn't agree with the requirements are always free to list on the NYSE or wherever else instead.

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u/likeitis121 26d ago

My question is always if they are allowed to do this, is it also allowable to do the opposite? So, can they refuse to list companies that have any black people on their board? That would clearly seem like a really bad policy, but DEI misses the point that judging people based on their skin/sexuality is bad, and that everyone should be treated as a person.

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u/-Boston-Terrier- 26d ago

I'm not defending DEI or even outright racism.

I'm just simply saying a private company should be allowed to operate however they see fit even if other companies and consumers choose not to do business with them. Tim Cook is perfectly capable of deciding if he wants to divulge statistics on race and ethnicity to NASDAQ and, if he's not, he has more than enough resources to relist elsewhere. He would be undoubtedly aware that there might be some people who would simply drop any company listed on NASDAQ from their portfolios which could sink share price and effect his own employment.

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u/richardhammondshead 26d ago

NASDAQ has corporate governance requirements that must be met before a company can be listed. What it's saying here is in a violation of their own rules. The proposal required that NASDAQ had (1) woman, (1) person of color and (1) LGBTQ director. If they didn't meet those obligations, they had to explain why. So they had to provide a lot of personal information on people that really has no bearing on the independence of the directors; moreover, it could be argued that it's against the independence of of directors. It was a silly move.

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u/-Boston-Terrier- 26d ago

I agree that it's a silly move.

I'm simply saying private companies should be allowed to do silly things.