California’s “Underrepresented Communities” Board Diversity Law Struck Down in Federal Court

The last few years, we've been reporting about the numerous challenges to California's board gender diversity statute (known as SB 826) and the board diversity statute regarding "underrepresented communities" (known as AB 979). As we blogged last year, the plaintiffs won two state court cases on state constitutional grounds - in Crest v. Padilla I and II - and the court issued injunctions so that those two statutes are not implemented at this time. Both cases are currently on appeal.

Now we have a development for a case filed in federal court - Alliance for Fair Board Recruitment v. Weber – in which the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment recently, finding that AB 979 was unconstitutional on federal equal protection clause grounds.