Maxine Waters and Joyce Beatty Press Banks on Diversity

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chair of the House Financial Services Committee, is pressing the financial services industry to release their data on diversity. A 2010 law, the Dodd-Frank Act, created 20 Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) in the country's most powerful financial regulatory agencies, to be responsible for all matters relating to diversity in regulated agencies' management, employment, and business activities. This is known as Section 342. "Unfortunately, a complete picture of diversity and inclusion in the financial services industry cannot be obtained until the financial services industry shares their diversity data and policies with the OMWIs, Congress, and the public," Waters wrote in a letter with Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-OH), that the pair plans to send to top financial institutions. "Without access to this data, it is not fully possible to gauge whether regulated entities are meeting the spirit and intention of Section 342." The lawmakers want demographics of the employees and their career levels; employee compensation by gender, race, and ethnicity; as well as the number and dollar value invested with minority- and women-owned vendors and asset managers as compared to all vendor and asset manager investments. The lawmakers also ask for the amount and percentage of the company's 401K plan and other pension plan assets invested with diverse-owned asset management firms and categorize each firm by gender and racial ownership type (women, African American, Latinx, etc.). "If you go to college and you study economics, or you get involved in a job that brings you to a point where you should be seriously considered for management or other high-level jobs, it should be done in a fair way," Waters said in a CNBC interview. "Your application should not go in the wastebasket because of your color." She said she wants to encourage CEOs to view diversity as a positive thing. "To the degree that a business or a company is diverse, it does better. In many cases, it's more profitable, they get more experience, they get more intelligence, and it works well for the company." She said she's not trying to change any laws but will use whatever leverage she has to press the issue. Read the letter here.

This article was originally published as part of The Beat DC Newsletter on June 10, 2019.