Women will be required on corporate boards in California, new landmark law says
The measure signed by Gov. Jerry Brown requires California-based, public corporations to have at least one female director on their boards, by the end of next year.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Gov. Jerry Brown of California and his wife, Anne Gust Brown, second from left, in his office on Sunday. Mr. Brown signed a bill that requires publicly held corporations based in the state to include women on their boards. Credit: Rich Pedroncelli/Associated Press
The measure signed by Gov. Jerry Brown requires California-based, public corpo rations to have at least one female director on their boards, by the end of next year.
By the end of 2021, companies with "principal executive offices" in the state would be required to have up to three female directors, depending on the number of board seats.
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The law makes California the first state with a government mandate not to have all-male boards.
Jerry had fun this last week.
He passed very Tough net neutrality laws, immediately sued by Jeff Sessions.
Threw out the immigrant voter's law.
Set a goal of zero pollution from energy protection by 2045.
Vetoed an extension of the current statute for filing against childhood sexual offenders - the bill attempted to raise the age from 26 to 40 for filing against and accused abuser.
Come January, Jerry's headed for his ranch, where will Jeff Sessions be?
Hard to see how the primary provision of this won't violate both the state and possibly federal constitutions. California, like many states prohibits discrimination against or in favor of people based on sex. It would also seem to be in danger of violating the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment, albeit at an intermediate scrutiny level.
Mandating a certain number of women necessarily will disqualify some men based on sex.
California Constitution Article 1, Section 8:
Also possibly applicable is Section 31:
There are also laws (no I don't have the cites in my head) prohibiting discriminatory hiring practices based on sex.
Well, I'm not a lawyer but . . .
I think you're right-- it will eventually be found to be unconstitutional.
However what it might do in the meantime is result in raising public awareness of the issue.
Isn’t everyone already aware the government in California hates freedom.
Nor. FWIW, have I ever played one on TV!
(Theme from the TV series "L.A. Law)
Isn’t everyone already aware the government in California hates freedom.
They hate freedom? OMG-- that's terrible!!!
(No wonder so few people live there!!!!)
I am a native California and have never had a problem with freedom.
Is it an issue? It's already illegal to not hire someone because of their sex. If you're a woman, do you really want to be "the token female" on a board? Even if you're not token, going forward, people will now assume you are.
And I know this is unpopular, but statistically, women just don't want to pursue that kind of lifestyle in the numbers that men do. It's all well and good to say 50% of the population is women therefore 50% of everything should be female, but the pool of women who want to be on boards of directors is much smaller than the pool of men who do.
Four decades ago I was involved with Amica Insurance and it was run like a factory.
A factory where all of the Board members were old white men from Brown University, no exceptions.
If you hadn't attended Brown, there were zero opportunities for advancement.
All of the managers were white men and all of the staff were women, only white women from what I could see.
Eventually, I suppose they saw the light and they are a little bit more diverse today, 3 women out of 11 Directors, 10 of those are older and white.
The one non white Director? Went to Brown University of course.
Evolution is a very slow process.
Chops to Jerry Brown for trying to do something about it.
It should always be the best person for the job. If the cream of the crop leaves the NBA almost totally black, then I am all for it.