Officials in California, whose agenda for their own version of “equity” and “fairness” apparently includes the idea that they can control the companies that operate in their state, are demanding that those corporations appoint gays to their boards.
And the state is getting sued for that.
Investigative reporter Matthew Vadum has documented at The Epoch Times how a think tank has filed a federal civil rights complaint against the state.
It’s in response to a new state law that demands quotas on the boards of public corporations based on race and sexual orientation.
The legal challenge comes from the National Center for Public Policy Research and is pending in federal court in the Eastern District of California, the report said.
The defendant is Shirley Weber, who was, Vadum reported, “a radical left-wing academic before entering politics” and now is secretary of state there.
The NCPPR is a pro-free market research and shareholder advocacy organization and is working with the Pacific Legal Foundation in the dispute over the new law that “perpetuates discrimination by treating people based on their immutable characteristics, and not as individuals.”
The foundation reported the state is demanding “people of certain races or sexual orientations” be installed on boards.
“California’s quota doesn’t remedy discrimination, it perpetuates it,” said Anastasia Boden, senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “This law forces shareholders to cast votes based on immutable characteristics that people were born into. The government should treat people as individuals, not based on immutable characteristics.”
The foundation earlier sued the state over its “woman quota” on boards and won a preliminary victory at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sand shareholders have standing to challenge the requirements.
The new law adds quotas for members based on race and sexual orientation.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the law, claiming it was to advance “racial justice.”
The problem is “these diversity quotas apply to all businesses across every industry in perpetuity, regardless of whether there is any specific evidence of discrimination,” the NCPPR said.
Such laws, “which dole out benefits and impose burdens on the basis of race, sex, and sexual orientation, are unconstitutional,” it said.
PLF lawyer Daniel Ortner told the Times, “What’s happening is the state of California has decided that they can intervene and force private companies to impose race quotas and sex quotas and all kinds of quotas.”
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