The SEC has approved a proposal submitted by Nasdaq to require listed companies meet quotas for race, gender, and sexual orientation of their directors. These quotas must meet established timetables or else companies must publicly explain their failure to meet the requirements. Failing to comply could eventually lead to a company being removed from the Nasdaq.
How dare they diminish the accomplishments and credentials of a director by giving weight to such a foolish metric as skin color or bed partner? Does anyone ever wonder “how dare they even ask?”
Aside from the clear implication that this policy disfavors certain candidates based on skin color, in addition to other immutable characteristics, it perpetuates in its preferred candidates “the soft bigotry of low expectations.”
The term, popularized by former president George W. Bush in a 2000 speech to the NAACP, refers to the presumed lower potential for achievement from certain groups of people—particularly black people. Resultingly, since those lesser-able groups cannot be held to the same standards of excellence expected of others, they must be helped along in the name of equity. This is prejudice.
I see nothing wrong with seeking to diversify a company’s Board of Directors, its workforce, or even its client-base. Literature abounds with arguments that doing so benefits the bottom line, company culture, and attracting and retaining talent, among other things. Many HR departments have been persuaded by these arguments. Indeed, the companies listed on the Nasdaq are some of the world’s largest companies—such as Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft—with a demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and other social justice efforts.
Done right, these efforts can and, I’m certain, will increase the pool of candidates with the diversity that these companies and the Nasdaq seek. Done wrong, like the Nasdaq proposal, they not only likely violate the law but also send the message that minorities—on the whole—are just incapable on merit alone to compete for and secure positions on corporate boards or other prestigious positions.
That perception will stain the tremendous achievement of minority candidates who are selected for a board seat. It is an asterisk next to that resume line, just as affirmative action has been for educational achievement, that can never be removed. Suspicion will remain indefinitely, in one’s own mind and those of onlookers, that minority status had some—perhaps outsized—influence on one’s accomplishments.
