A California law requiring corporate boards to name at least three women as directors is unconstitutional, a federal judge ruled May 13. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis said that the gender quota violates the equal protection clause of the state constitution.
“Under California law, classifications based on gender have long been considered ‘suspect’ for purposes of an equal protection analysis,” the judge wrote in her verdict.
The opinion stems from a lawsuit challenging a 2018 law that required every publicly held corporation headquartered in California to have at least one female director on its board of directors by Dec. 31, 2019, and up to three women on their corporate boards by Dec. 31, 2021, depending on the size of the board. The Women on Boards law called for penalties ranging from $100,000 fines for failing to report board compositions to the California secretary of state’s office to $300,000 for multiple failures to have the required number of women board members, the Associated Press reported.
Conservative legal group Judicial Watch represented the plaintiffs.
A spokesperson for LeadingAge California told the McKnight’s Business Daily: “While we were disappointed to hear about the court’s ruling, LeadingAge California is not deterred in our effort to increase diversity among the highest corporate ranks in our industry.”
According to lawyers from Latham & Watkins, Duffy-Lewis’ decision comes less than two months after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Terry A. Green similarly ruled in another case that a law requiring California publicly listed corporations to have board members from “underrepresented communities” violated the state’s equal protection clause.
“While women and Black, indigenous and other people of color are overrepresented in the caregiving workforce, they have been vastly underrepresented in C-suites and on corporate boards across aging services,” LeadingAge California said. “We understand that organizations with greater diversity are more innovative, show more corporate creativity and are more successful overall.”
