California Trial Courts Strike Down State's Board Diversity Laws

On May 13, 2022, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge struck down California's Women on Boards law, finding that the law violated the California Constitution's Equal Protection Clause. Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis reached her decision following a bench trial in a challenge to the 2018 law.

In 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 826 into law. Referred to as the Women on Boards law, this first-in-the-nation law required all publicly held corporations whose principal executive offices are located in California to have at least one female director on their boards by December 31, 2019. By December 31, 2021, such corporations were required to have a minimum number of female directors on their boards based on the total size of the corporation's board. Corporations that failed to comply with the law faced a penalty of up to $300,000 per violation.