Devin Fergus reports that a controversial provision in the financial-reform bill doesn’t include racial quotas, but it does promise to redress long-standing inequalities in the financial sector:
Buried in the financial-reform bill President Obama signed in July is an innocuous-sounding provision, Section 342. It establishes Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion (OMWI) in each federal financial regulatory agency in an effort to expand gender and racial diversity and mitigate predatory financial practices. For many conservatives, Section 342 is anything but anodyne. Among the shrillest critics has been the nation’s financial paper of record, The Wall Street Journal. Fearmongers on the Journal’s editorial board have branded Section 342 “the biggest under-reported threat” of the bill, declaring it “the most brazen attempt to hijack central bank policy since its founding nearly a century ago.” There is little reason for such hysteria.