C Boyden Gray vs NASDAQ

I know who should be winning. I know how the matter should be resolved.

Recall that NASDAQ wants to require companies, as a condition of being listed on the NASDAQ exchange, to have quotas of particular groups of Americans on those companies’ boards of directors:

“at least one director who self-identifies as female,” and “at least one director who self-identifies as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, Native American or Alaska Native, two or more races or ethnicities, or as LGBTQ+.”

And

Noncompliant firms must publicly “explain”—in writing—why they don’t meet Nasdaq’s quotas.

Gray’s and his colleague, Jonathan Berry’s, summary of their Comment filing before the SEC is spot on.

Nasdaq’s discriminate-or-explain rule is unlawful, unconstitutional, and unsupported by the evidence. Quota systems like this unjustifiably classify people by arbitrary categories of sex and race in violation of equal-protection principles, and the “alternative” of explaining why a firm won’t discriminate compels speech in violation of the First Amendment.

Yet, this is the damage the social justice warriors that infest our government at all levels would inflict.

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