Progressives often support diversity mandates as a path to equality and a way to level the playing field. But all too often such policies are an insincere form of virtue-signaling that benefits only the most privileged and does little to help average people.

    A pair of bills sponsored by Massachusetts state Senator Jason Lewis and House Speaker Pro Tempore Particia Haddad, to ensure “gender parity on boards and commissions, provide a case in point.

    Haddad and Lewis are concerned that more than half the state-government boards are less than 40 percent female. In order to ensure that elite women have more such opportunities, they have proposed imposing government quotas. If the bills become law, state boards and commissions will be required to set aside 50 percent of board seats for women by 2022.

    The bills are similar to a measure recently adopted in California, which last year became the first state to require gender quotas for private companies. In signing the measure, California Governor Jerry Brown admitted that the law, which expressly classifies people on the basis of sex, is probably unconstitutional.

    The US Supreme Court frowns on sex-based classifications unless they are designed to address an “important” policy interest. Because the California law applies to all boards, even where there is no history of prior discrimination, courts are likely to rule that the law violates the constitutional guarantee of “equal protection”.

    But are such government mandates even necessary? Female participation on corporate boards may not currently mirror the percentage of women in the general population, but so what?

    The number of women on corporate boards has been steadily increasing without government interference. According to a study by Catalyst, between 2010 and 2015 the share of women on the boards of global corporations increased by 54 percent.

    Requiring companies to make gender the primary qualification for board membership will inevitably lead to less experienced private sector boards. That is exactly what happened when Norway adopted a nationwide corporate gender quota.

    Writing in The New Republic, Alice Lee notes that increasing the number of opportunities for board membership without increasing the pool of qualified women to serve on such boards has led to a “golden skirt” phenomenon, where the same elite women scoop up multiple seats on a variety of boards.

    Next time somebody pushes corporate quotas as a way to promote gender equity, remember that such policies are largely self-serving measures that make their sponsors feel good but do little to help average women.

答案精析：本题为例证题。根据题干中的the study by Catalyst可定位至第七段第二句。第七段第一句说到，在没有政府干预的情况下，企业董事会中女性的数量也在稳定增长，这是针对第六段中But are such government mandates even necessary的回应，也就是对政府干预的必要性提出质疑。接着第七段第二句提到Catalyst的一项研究，该研究表明，2010到2015年间，全球企业董事会中女性占比增长了54%，以数据证实了第一句中所说的情况。由此可知，作者提到这项研究是为了论证之前的观点，即政府干预是没有必要的，因此选D。

错项排除：A项中的arbitrary board decision在文中无相关描述，故A项排除。B项利用原文词constitutional guarantees设置干扰，但文中第五段说的是宪法保障的“平等保护”条款，而Catalyst的研究与它没有直接关系，故B项排除。文中Catalyst的研究说的是女性在全球企业董事会的人数占比增加，并没有提到女性在全球企业中的压力问题，故C项排除。