ACR Project 9th Circuit Amicus Brief, Supporting Meland’s Request for Injunction Against Enforcement of California’s Legislation Allocating Board Seats by Sex

Over the last two cycles, California enacted two statutes requiring shareholders to elect slates of corporate directors so as to allocate board seats first by sex and then by a host of identitarian categorizations (on penalty of material fines).  Creighton Meland, a stockholder of one affected corporation, sued the state, arguing that the first of those laws unconstitutionally compels him to discriminate by sex in casting his votes.  When he asked the District Court to enjoin enforcement, it refused.  Meland then asked the Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to reverse that denial.

In support of Mr. Meland, the ACR Project filed an amicus brief with the Court of Appeals. The Court of Appeals should reverse because the District Court wrongly accepted as “exceedingly persuasive” the state’s embrace of what precedent rightly calls a “pernicious and offensive” notion — that women always and everywhere need governmental support to compete. It should also reverse because, over the last 7 years, the Supreme Court has quietly replaced the standard the lower court used with a new, stricter test for gauging the Constitutionality of governments’ sex-discriminatory policies when acting as sovereigns.