SEC approves Nasdaq’s plan to require board diversity. By Alexander Olson.

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday approved Nasdaq’s groundbreaking proposal to boost the number of women, racial minorities and LGBTQ people on U.S. corporate boards.

The new policy — the first of its kind for a U.S. securities exchange — requires most of the nearly 3,000 companies listed on Nasdaq to have at least one woman on their board of directors, along with one person from a racial minority or who identifies as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer. It also requires companies to publicly disclose statistics on the demographic composition of their boards. …

Nasdaq-listed companies with five or fewer board members, however, will only be required to have one diverse member. …

Companies that don’t meet the diversity criteria will not be delisted but must publicly explain why they could not comply. …

All corporations must have at least one board member within a year.

Bigotry is here to stay for the time being. Discrimination rulz.

Merit can take a back seat until we get scared by something and have to resort to being the best we can be, again. Almost wishing those UFO sightings were credible.