Opinion: Objection to California’s Bill on Diversity at Foundations

The California Assembly’s passage last week of a measure to force big foundations to disclose information about the diversity of their staffs, boards, and grantees has attracted criticism from The Wall Street Journal’s editorial section.

The bill was passed last week by the California Assembly and is expected to pass the California Senate and reach Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is based on an idea drafted by an advocacy group called the Greenlining Institute, based in Berkeley, and the organization is now taking its case to the U.S. Congress.

The Journal says that focusing so heavily on diversity glosses over the missions of charities and thwarts donors’ intention in making charitable donations.

“If donors are suddenly supposed to allocate grants by the color or sexual lifestyle of the grantee, that donor intent will be distorted at the very least. Presumably we want money for cancer research to support the most promising research ideas, not to be based on whether the labs have a rainbow coalition of PhDs. The goal is to cure cancer.”

The editorial concludes: “Foundations and charities that don’t want to start apportioning their donations by skin color, or between gays and heterosexuals, had better start describing this idea as the political shakedown it is.”