Eliminate regulations requiring appointments based on race, sex, or orientation

Research notes

This Recommendation carries the same Quote as #2127, which tracks the first half of the sentence (abolish DEI offices at financial regulators). This item is the second half: eliminate regulations that require appointments on the basis of race, ethnicity, sex or sexual orientation. The two are leveled differently on purpose - #2127’s object is an office and none has been shown abolished; this item’s object is an appointment regulation and one is gone.

• What was removed. Nasdaq Rule 5605(f) and 5606 required each listed company to have, or publicly explain why it did not have, at least two directors who self-identify as female, an underrepresented minority or LGBTQ+, and to publish a board-diversity matrix. The SEC published Nasdaq’s repeal filing as immediately effective on 2025-01-30. That is a regulation requiring board appointments on the bases the Quote names, and it is no longer in force.
• Why the Status is not done. The sweep is not complete. The statutory Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion survive (see #2127), FHFA’s 12 CFR part 1207 still requires regulated entities to promote diversity in board composition, and no financial regulator has published a rule rescinding an appointment requirement. No allowlisted source says the sweep is finished, which is what playbook §3 requires for done on an open-ended “all X” ask.
• Adjacent, not counted. FHFA’s withdrawal of the proposed rule “Enterprise Liquidity Requirements; Federal Home Loan Bank System Boards of Directors and Executive Management; Federal Home Loan Bank Unsecured Credit Limits” on 2025-10-02 (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/10/02/2025-19429/enterprise-liquidity-requirements-federal-home-loan-bank-system-boards-of-directors-and-executive) killed a proposal, not a regulation. FHFA’s repeal of its Fair Lending, Fair Housing, and Equitable Housing Finance Plans rule (12 CFR part 1293, final 2026-02-06) is a lending rule, not an appointments rule, and is already noted on #2127.
• Readable after all, and the answer is silence (read-queue ticket 07, 2026-09-06). sec.gov refuses a bare curl and a browser User-Agent — which is what the earlier passes measured — and answers 200 with full content to the full Chrome header set, the third rung of scripts/fetch-page.mjs. The Commission’s speeches-and-statements index at sec.gov/newsroom/speeches-statements pages with ?year=&page=, and all 350 distinct statements published in 2025 and 2026 were enumerated. Not one concerns board diversity, the Nasdaq listing standards, or appointment-related rules at any self-regulatory organization: the only slugs matching “board” are about the PCAOB’s board seats, and the only one matching “diversification” is about opening 401(k)s to private markets. The Commission’s complete policy-statement index carries two entries in the window, on mandatory arbitration provisions (2025-09-17) and on criminal referrals (2025-06-16). So the Federal Register notice remains the whole of the Commission’s record on this, and the second half of the row’s question — whether the Commission has said anything about appointment-related SRO rules — is answered: it has not.