SNOOZE-PAPER

WSJ Makes Ludicrous Suggestion ‘Diverse’ Board May Have Doomed SVB

Columnist Andy Kessler wondered in print if Silicon Valley Bank had been too “distracted by diversity demands” to notice it was hurtling towards disaster.

A columnist for The Wall Street Journal, a newspaper with a history of publishing questionable op-eds in recent years, on Monday came up with another gem: What if the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history happened because everyone was too busy being woke? In his column, Andy Kessler, an opinion writer focused on technology and markets, wrote, “In its proxy statement, [Silicon Valley Bank] notes that besides 91 percent of their board being independent and 45 percent women, they also have ‘1 Black,’ ‘1 LGBTQ+,’ and ‘2 Veterans.’ I’m not saying 12 white men would have avoided this mess, but the company may have been distracted by diversity demands.” Is it possible that the snowflakes over at SVB were too busy being fitted for their diversity-equity-and-inclusion blinders to notice the disaster hurtling towards them? Sure, but in that case, the United States’ top five largest banks—which, as Vice News pointed out, all have more diverse boards than SVB did—are in some real trouble.