Race, Gender Quotas In Finance Bill

The financial reform bill recently approved by the House of Representatives and expected to pass in the Senate after the summer recess creates government “minority inclusion” offices and requires private financial institutions to implement race and gender employment quotas.

Known as the Dodd-Frank bill, the legislation is intended to overhaul Wall Street by enacting sweeping new rules that will supposedly prevent another financial crisis. The law will create new agencies to police credit cards, mortgages, financial system risks and exotic securities known as derivatives.

Much of this has been widely reported in the media, which has conveniently ignored the measure’s minority quota mandate for the nation’s financial industry. At least 20 offices of Minority and Women Inclusion will be set up to “address employment and contracting diversity matters.” The offices will coordinate technical assistance to minority-owned and women-owned businesses and seek diversity in the workforce of regulators.

Key agencies such as the Treasury Department, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Federal Housing Finance Agency, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as well as the 12 Federal Reserve regional banks will get their own Office of Minority and Women Inclusion. So will the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the National Credit Union Administration.

Each office will be equipped with a director and staff to develop policies that promote equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic and gender diversity of the individual agency as well as companies that do business with it. The goal is to assure “to the maximum extent possible the fair inclusion” of women and minorities, individually and through business they own, in the activities of the agencies, including contracting.

This is simply the Obama Administration’s latest effort to implement a crazed minority quota mandate throughout government and the private sector. Earlier this year the director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) was ordered to hire more women and minorities by the Democratic Florida congresswoman (Debbie Wasserman Schultz) who allocates its funding.

At a separate House Appropriations subcommittee hearing a few days later, the chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus (California Democrat Barbara Lee) chastised Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas over the lack of diversity among Supreme Court clerks and questioned his efforts to attract candidates from minority groups.