Giving's Good Enough

It used to be that the act of giving to a charity itself ranked pretty high on the scale of the politically correct. But times have changed-a bill passed by the State Assembly and en route to the Senate makes it clear that it's not good enough to give: You've got to give to the right people.

AB 624, the brainchild of the Berkeley-based Greenlining Institution and introduced by Assemblymember Joe Coto (D-San Jose), requires charitable foundations with more than $250 million in assets to disclose the race, gender and sexual orientation of their board members on their Web sites.

We don't dispute Coto's basic premise-that some minority groups are underrepresented in the world of nonprofit administration. Some minorities are underrepresented in many areas-hence, obviously, the term "underrepresented minority." AB 624, however, is less an effective treatment for pervasive inequality than a horrendous intrusion by the state into the affairs of private institutions.

A group fighting to save sea otters-a Greenlining example, before you laugh, not ours-is neither inherently more nor less effective for having a board that perfectly reflects the state census. Provided that its hiring practices conform to existing state law on discrimination, the background of its members is absolutely no business of the state. And if the group thinks its racial makeup is a selling point, it's already free to play that up.

As for recipients of charitable donations, it is again irrelevant to the state whether a group spends its money exclusively on minorities or exclusively on sea otters. It's not the government's money and it's not the government's business.

Valuing transparency doesn't mean forcing private citizens to post their biographies online. Valuing diversity doesn't mean demonizing those you feel don't warrant the label. Tell your representative you know the difference-and they should, too.