Affirmative Action Run Amok

Remind me not to incorporate a business in Norway...

Norway will shut companies that refuse to recruit at least 40 percent women to their boards by 2007 under an unprecedented equality drive, a cabinet minister said on Tuesday.

"Companies have been dragging their feet. They really have to recruit more women," Children and Family Affairs Minister Laila Daavoey told Reuters.

"In the very worst case, they will face closure."

Norway's parliament told firms in 2002 to ensure at least 40 percent of each sex in boardrooms by mid-2005 to force corporate leadership to match Nordic traditions of sex equality elsewhere in society.

Before Tuesday, however, Oslo had not spelt out sanctions for non-compliance. Many companies denounce the scheme as the toughest corporate sex equality goal in the world.

...Daavoey, who oversees sex equality rules, said that all state-controlled firms including oil group Statoil and telecoms firm Telenor had already complied.

But many other firms are lagging, including energy and engineering group Aker Kvaerner or Internet search group Fast. Many business leaders say the rules will force them to recruit ill-qualified women as quota fillers.

"If we can recruit women to our state companies why can't private businesses do it too?" Daavoey said.

I'm speechless at the stupidity of this policy, and even more so when I read that last quote. I'm sure the private companies can recruit women -- it's the idea that they establish a quota for board representation that probably strikes them as unreasonable. In the meantime, if our government ever opens a "Children and Family Affairs" ministry, it's probably time to give up.