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

[u/ShivasRightFoot]

https://apnews.com/article/nasdaq-sec-dei-diversity-board-a3b8803a646a62aeb2733bbd4603e670

[u/ShivasRightFoot]

According to the article this is the heart of the new rules and what got it rejected by the court:

The proposed policy — which was to be the first of its kind for a U.S. securities exchange — would have required most of the nearly 3,000 companies listed on Nasdaq to have at least one woman on their board of directors, along with one person from a racial minority or who identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer. It also would have required companies to publicly disclose statistics on the demographic composition of their boards.

The court specifically admonished the SEC for approving the new proposed rules:

The court said in its ruling that the SEC should not have approved Nasdaq’s proposed diversity policy.

“It is not unethical for a company to decline to disclose information about the racial, gender, and LGTBQ+ characteristics of its directors,” the ruling stated. “We are not aware of any established rule or custom of the securities trade that saddles companies with an obligation to explain why their boards of directors do not have as much racial, gender, or sexual orientation diversity as Nasdaq would prefer.”

NASDAQ offered statements in support of the policy and likely will appeal the decision.

This is the latest in a series of court defeats for reverse-discrimination policies supported by some people on the extreme political Left. The fact Democrats have publicly supported these policies is frankly shameful. This is racial discrimination pure and simple.

[u/Ensemble_InABox → u/ShivasRightFoot]

It's great that this is coming to light very publicly. It's fairly well known that Blackrock does this informally and mostly quietly to companies they own major stakes in. Essentially the exact same policy, they pressure companies financially to remove existing board members to ensure that they have at least one non-white, non-asian board member, and as far as I have seen, an LGBTQ person suffices.

As an aside, I've always found LGBTQ DEI just straight-up bizarre. How do they even verify someone's sexuality? It's comical.

[u/Nissan_Altima_69 → u/Ensemble_InABox]

Some job applications ask you your sexuality lol, its like "none of your fucking business". Its a different situation and they do it to avoid law suits, but its just so bizarre we've found ourselves here lol

[u/Ensemble_InABox → u/Nissan_Altima_69]

Most tech companies do that, it's insufferable. My old co would also survey employees on their sexuality and gender identity, I learned from a friend in HR that almost 80% of the company responded: "prefer not to disclose".

[u/Nissan_Altima_69 → u/Ensemble_InABox]

Seriously, how fucking weird is that? I mean, talking with co workers about your spouse or someone your dating is normal, but this shit is just getting creepy. I'd rather the law say they arent allowed to ask this at all

[u/Gary_Glidewell → u/Ensemble_InABox]

Most tech companies do that, it's insufferable. My old co would also survey employees on their sexuality and gender identity, I learned from a friend in HR that almost 80% of the company responded: "prefer not to disclose".

It's so much worse than that:

I used to work for A Giant Megacorps that was whittling down their employee numbers by layoff after layoff after layoff. In ten years, they reduced their headcount by half. They didn't do it by "massive layoffs," just a constant drip-drip-drip of layoffs. A couple of times a year, I would learn that 25% of my coworkers were laid off, and then I eventually got pink slipped too.

At the same place, HR routinely blasted out emails celebrating "diversity and inclusion" and inviting the employees to self-identify. The self identification was "voluntary." (If I'm not mistaken, it's not legal to ask someone who they prefer to have sex with, as a condition of employment.)

I mentioned this to a very old relative of mine, and they remarked offhand, that this was how the Nazis got the Jews into concentration camps. They got them to self identify, put them on a list, and then off they went. (Unironically aided by IBM, who is still involved in the same crap today.)

So my relative told me: just don't self identify. Don't fill out the survey. Keep your name off the list.

After he clued me in to this, I began to notice he was right: everytime that HR blasted out a survey where they asked people to self-identify, that email was followed up by a round of layoffs, about two months later.

Was the email blast and the layoffs connected? Can't say 100%, but I think so.