Los Angeles County-based California Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis ruled (pdf) May 13 in Crest v. Padilla that the state law known as SB 826 that compelled corporate boards to seat up to three female-identifying directors ran afoul of the constitutional right to equal treatment.

The goal of SB 826 "was to achieve general equity or parity; its goal was not to boost California's economy, not to improve opportunities for women in the workplace nor not to protect California taxpayers, public employees, pensions and retirees," the judge wrote.

"Putting more women on boards demonstrated that the Legislature's actual purpose was gender-balancing, not remedying discrimination," Duffy-Lewis wrote.

"There is no compelling governmental interest in remedying discrimination in the board selection process because neither the Legislature nor Defendant could identify any specific, purposeful, intentional and unlawful discrimination to be remedied," she wrote.

Tom Fitton, president of good-government group Judicial Watch, which represented the plaintiffs in court, welcomed the decision by Duffy-Lewis.

"The Court eviscerated California's unconstitutional gender quota mandate," Fitton said in a statement.

"Thankfully, California courts have upheld the core American value of equal protection under the law."

Fitton noted that this was the second recent California court decision finding that quotas for corporate boards are unconstitutional.