Race And Gender Quotas Mandated For Financial Industry
Unfair will from now on be fair...it's eternal backwards day from now on. Diana Furchtgott-Roth writes at Real Clear Markets:
WASHINGTON - What one finds when reading congressional legislation is invariably surprising. Take the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill, for instance, which was created by merging Senate and House bills. When the Senate returns from recess one of its first actions will be to vote on the bill, which passed the House on June 30.I was searching the bill for a provision about derivatives. What did I find but Section 342, which declares that race and gender employment ratios, if not quotas, must be observed by private financial institutions that do business with the government. In a major power grab, the new law inserts race and gender quotas into America's financial industry.
In addition to this bill's well-publicized plans to establish over a dozen new financial regulatory offices, Section 342 sets up at least 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion. This has had no coverage by the news media and has large implications.
The Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks, the Board of Governors of the Fed, the National Credit Union Administration, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau...all would get their own Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.
Each office would have its own director and staff to develop policies promoting equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of not just the agency's workforce, but also the workforces of its contractors and sub-contractors.
...How to define "fair" has bedeviled government administrators, university admissions officers, private employers, union shop stewards and all other supervisors since time immemorial - or at least since Congress first undertook to prohibit discrimination in employment.
Sometimes, "fair" has been defined in relation to population numbers, for example, by the U.S. Department of Education in its enforcement of Title IX, passed in 1972 as an amendment to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which pertains to varsity athletic opportunities for male and female undergraduates.
These days "fair" means passing over the best person for the job if they're white or have a penis, and hiring the person with more melanin or a vagina. Nice.
Where I worked they were already heavy into this type of thing. Fair was vaguely defined as internal ratios for position type match the general ratio of qualified people in the region. Unfortunately those external numbers appeared to basically appear by magic.
The Former Banker at July 10, 2010 12:54 AM
Another serious problem with quotas is they render many achievements suspect.
Trust at July 10, 2010 7:54 AM
I've wondered for quite awhile what the legal definition of minority is. If I say I'm a minority, can I get one of these quota jobs? If they don't have a definition, what are the potential repercussions?
To me this is the same kind of tactic as a lunch counter sit-in or refusing to sit in the back of the bus. If it helped fight against racism, shouldn't it work against "reverse racism?" The catch is, I'm wondering what the equivalent will be to the racist cops letting loose with firehoses and police dogs.
Shawn at July 10, 2010 7:58 AM
I'm struggling with this at work now. I've been working for the last several years towards a fellowship with the company. I am well aware that, as a middle-aged white male, I am the absolutely last person they want, because my presence screws up the diversity numbers. So, in order to get this promotion, I have to be able to demonstrate that without a doubt, I am head and shoulders above all the other applicants. In order to do that, I have to do fellowship-level work and demonstrate my competence at it. Problem: I can't get work assignments that would allow me to do that. I'm watching younger minority workers get plum IR&D or proposal assignments while I keep getting assigned grunt work. And yeah, I do my absolute best on the grunt work, but that doesn't impress anybody and it doesn't do anything for your resume.
Cousin Dave at July 10, 2010 8:53 AM
Quotas are just an open door for abuse of the system. Read "Europe's new old-girls' club"
http://www.canadianbusiness.com/managing/strategy/article.jsp?content=20100719_10009_10009
Tyler at July 10, 2010 9:39 AM
How they square this with the constitution I cannot begin to fathom. Their reasoning if rendered as a visual, must be like an M.C. Escher drawing.
Robert at July 10, 2010 10:44 AM
Just like Title IX, only more so.
Hey Skipper at July 10, 2010 12:27 PM
Oh, I can't wait until this is applied to, say, the NFL, where over 70% of the players are other than white.
Oh, wait. This is about money.
Radwaste at July 10, 2010 5:35 PM
Skipper, there's already noises being made about applying Title IX quotas to university science and engineering programs.
Cousin Dave at July 11, 2010 8:18 AM
Cousin Dave:
The noises are getting louder.
Last week I was at my cousin's house; she has a daughter who is a few years from college.
My cousin heard that the ticket for high school girls was to join the track team and take up pole vaulting.
Thanks to Title IX, there are lot of scholarships for that just laying on the table.
That is insane.
Hey Skipper at July 11, 2010 1:33 PM
You can legislate opportunity.
But
You cannot legislate talent or interest.
Robert at July 12, 2010 5:56 PM
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