Today, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Chairwoman of the House Committee on Financial Services, gave the following opening statement at a Subcommittee on Diversity and Inclusion virtual hearing entitled, “By the Numbers: How Diversity Data Can Measure Commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.”

Today, we are continuing to hold the financial services industry accountable for diversity and inclusion. I am pleased to partner with you, Ms. Beatty in requesting diversity data and policies from America’s largest investment firms. In addition to having an abysmal record of diversity within their investment firms, they have also not made it a priority to do business with diverse-owned asset managers and other businesses. Their excuses are not new and are ladened with long-standing, unfounded biases against diverse-owned asset managers, who perform as well as or better than their White-owned counterparts. And so, investment firms and others in the industry have also been reticent to share this data. But the data are needed to not only show the failing record, but to document their improvement. So, I look forward to discussing solutions to increase disclosure of diversity data which is indeed material to investors, and information that Congress and the public should have access to. 

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