California Assembly’s “diversity agenda” set to strangle foundations with diversity
February 12, 2008
The California Assembly has already OKed and sent to the Senate AB 624 that will require all large foundations to annually count up and report on the composition of their staff and board of directors according to race, gender, and sexual orientation; the percentage of their business contracts that go to businesses owned by specified racial and sexual minorities; the number of grants and percentage of grant funds awarded to organizations that serve specified racial and sexual minorities; and the number of grants and percentage of grant funds awarded to organizations where half or more of the staff or board members belong to specified racial and sexual minorities. All of this information is then to be reported under the heading of “Diversity.”
Think this is intrusive and irrelevant? “But it only applies to large foundations,” its backers say. And they aren’t worried about the requirement to “out” not only a foundation’s own staff and board, but even the staff and board of grantees and business partners! Worst of all, the advocates of such “diversity” don’t worry that the effect of such reporting will be to pressure the foundations into selecting staff and board, and making grants, not according to the foundations’ mission statements but rather according to the diversity lobby’s conception of the appropriate distribution of jobs and money.
Oops. It isn’t that the backers simply overlooked the fact that enforcing this kind of “diversity” reporting will result in a foundation sector that is less diverse in appearance and mission . . . rather, that’s the whole point. The Greenlining Institute, the inspiration for the bill, turns aside all objections by saying that the bill “simply requests diversity data in return for billions in tax subsidies.” So tax exempt status is not the government’s acknowledgment of the public good performed by private, independent actors, but rather a subsidy to which every kind of popular string can be attached.
This doesn’t seem like the best way to construct a robust and fruitful partnership between government and civil society. Here’s a very bad idea that is very likely to show up in other states. Urge Senator Tom Torlakson to vote against Senate AB624, and see how far you get.
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At one time under the so-called Equal Opportunity laws it was illegal to count people, employees or volunteers, etc., because that constituted race discrimination. Now I guess the law will require organizations to do that. My how times change!
To me diversity has become a 9 letter dirty word. Diversity, in itself, adds nothing to the community, organizations, programs, etc. It just promotes discrimination on the part of those who want to practice it.
Two other dirty word that are used also by the PCers are multi-cultural and closure. I shudder evertime I hear or read all these words.
We are so PC these days that we send in the storm troopers, AKA grief counselors, whenever something bad happens to a student off campus . The Times today had a story about a kid killed on a bicycle. That is very tragic but in response the storm troopers are invading.
When I was a kid in school several fellow students died from things like drowning and motorcycle accidents. No one stormed the gates and we were able to cope with it very well.
But then again, I guess this is the day where the government must be ubiquitous, encroaching on every part of our lives.
So words like diversity, multi-cultural and closure will have a long lfe. The PCers and government will see to that.