Opinion: Nasdaq goes woke with diversity policing

It’s unlikely in the extreme that companies searching for people to meet Nasdaq’s diversity targets will find intelligent owners.

By David Isaac, World Israel News

In the latest example of woke politics imposing its acidic dissolve on the American system, Nasdaq has proposed diversity mandates for its members’ boards.

The stock market operator filed a proposal with the Securities and Exchange Commission last week requiring its member companies to take on at least two “diverse directors” – one a woman and the other an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+.

The Nasdaq says members which don’t meet its diversity goals could instead make a disclosure as to why not. Only if they fail to make that disclosure would they face delisting. Soothing words to make the political diktat go down easier.

One must be blind not to see this for the political pressure it is. “Comply or explain yourself” is an outrageous demand. Companies know what’s best for their boards – preferably someone who knows something about the business. Boards aren’t inclusion centers for the fashionable victim of the moment. They’re there to help the company prosper.

A Wall Street Journal editorial about the Nasdaq’s descent into woke politics captured the essence of the situation by quoting from Berkshire Hathaways’ Warren Buffett, who laments the impact the obsession with diversity has already had on corporate America.

“…consultants and CEOs seeking board candidates will often say, ‘We’re looking for a woman,’ or ‘a Hispanic,’ or ‘someone from abroad,’ or what have you. It sometimes sounds as if the mission is to stock Noah’s ark. Over the years I’ve been queried many times about potential directors and have yet to hear anyone ask, ‘Does he think like an intelligent owner?’”

It’s unlikely in the extreme that companies searching for people to meet Nasdaq’s diversity targets will find intelligent owners. What they’ll likely end up with are political activists. It’s not permissible to ask someone if they’re LGBTQ+ (the plus sign is a clever way to get out of the self parodying LGBTTQQIAAP – unless another initial has been added as of this writing). People who identify as such have to volunteer the information, and those that do such volunteering are activists.

Even a woman isn’t necessarily a woman just because she looks like one. A Hollywood starlet, who had come out of the closet as a lesbian, just came out of a still deeper closet to announce she’s a queer guy named Elliot. Which is why Nasdaq was careful with its words. It didn’t call for a female, but for “one who self-identifies as female.”

Until now, companies were delisted from an exchange for financial reasons, such as dropping below the minimum number of shareholders. It would be incredible to read one day of a company’s delisting due to dereliction in the LGTBQ+ department.

The Nasdaq’s decision to play Politburo is profoundly un-American. America has never been about equality of outcome. This is summarized nicely in the country’s first Western novel, The Virginian:

“It was through the Declaration of Independence that we Americans acknowledged the eternal inequality of man. For by it we abolished a cut-and-dried aristocracy. We had seen little men artificially held up in high places, and great men artificially held down in low places, and our own justice-loving hearts abhorred this violence to human nature. Therefore, we decreed that every man should thenceforth have equal liberty to find his own level. By this very decree we acknowledged and gave freedom to true aristocracy, saying, “Let the best man win, whoever he is.” Let the best man win! That is America’s word. That is true democracy. And true democracy and true aristocracy are one and the same thing. If anybody cannot see this, so much the worse for his eyesight.”

Why does World Israel News take an interest in this matter? Wherever meritocracy rules, Jews excel. When equality of outcome becomes the yardstick, Jews will inevitably be shunted aside. Note that Nasdaq’s second pick isn’t a minority, it’s an “underrepresented minority” – read: We have enough Jews.

David Isaac is managing editor of World Israel News.

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