Attorneys for an Atlanta-based venture capital firm being sued over a grant program for Black women vowed Thursday to fight back against the lawsuit, calling it misguided and frivolous.
At a New York news conference, the attorneys also announced that prominent civil rights lawyers, including Ben Crump, would join the defense for the Fearless Fund, which was founded in 2019 by three Black women.
The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Atlanta, was brought by a nonprofit founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, the man behind the Supreme Court cases that led to the dismantling of race-conscious college admissions programs across the U.S.
The complaint could be a test case, as the battle over considerations on race shifts to the workplace. Last month, thirteen Republican state attorneys general sent a letter to 100 of the biggest U.S. companies arguing that the court ruling on affirmative action could also apply to private entities, like employers.
In its lawsuit, American Alliance For Equal Rights argues the fund’s Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, which awards $20,000 to Black women who run businesses, violates a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibiting racial discrimination in contracts. It claims it has members who are being excluded from the program because of their race and said it’s entitled to relief.
The venture capital firm was established to address barriers that exist in venture capital funding for businesses led by women of color. It runs the grant contest four times a year. To be eligible, a business must be at least 51% owned by a Black woman, among other qualifications.
“Today, the playing field is not level — that is beyond dispute,” Alphonso David, a civil rights attorney who serves as president & CEO of The Global Black Economic Forum, said at the news conference. “Those targeting Fearless Fund want to propagate a system that privileges some and shuts out most….
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