This one, increasingly unsurprisingly, comes from The Wall Street Journal‘s “news” room. This is the lede from the outlet’s Monday article centered on the 11th Circuit’s decision blocking a Venture Firm’s Grant Program for Black Women:
A federal appeals court on Monday blocked Atlanta-based investment firm Fearless Fund from continuing with a contest that grants awards to businesses owned by Black women, a blow against diversity and inclusion programs that have been under increasing legal attack.
No. It’s actually a blow against segregationist programs that have been under increasing legal attack.
TIFIFY.
Selection on the basis of race or gender rather than merit, as this “venture firm” attempted to do, is intrinsically racist and sexist. Fearless‘ lawyer, Jason Schwartz, in his dismay over the ruling, had this:
The discrimination in access to funding that the Fearless Foundation seeks to address is long-standing and irrefutable[.]
That argument merely adds to the weight of the majority decision: adding discrimination to existing discrimination (stipulating arguendo that Schwartz’ claimed prior is true) merely adds to the discrimination. Further, Shwartz’ argument begins by tacitly acknowledging the inherent racism and sexism of that “existing” discrimination. Schwartz is either disingenuous or broadly oblivious.
Judge Kevin Newsom, writing for the majority, agrees, albeit somewhat more circumlocutorily:
“The fact remains, though, that Fearless simply—and flatly—refuses to entertain applications from business owners who aren’t ‘black females'[.]” If that warranted protection under the First Amendment, “then so would be every act of race discrimination.”
Even the court’s lone dissenter in the decision had no argument against the ruling itself; Judge Robin Rosenbaum argued only that the plaintiff had no standing to bring the case in the first place.
It’s pretty instructive to note that what those so enthusiastically pushing for solutions like Fearless‘; college/university affirmative programs, which also push favoring one group at the expense of others solely on race or sex; et al., miss is that while the problem they claim to want to address is real, the solution lies at the bottom: equal opportunity in the formative years of our children so they enter adult life on an equal footing. Top down solutions, which really are after the fact and too late solutions, don’t accomplish anything other than continued racist and sexist segregation.
That last is a milieu where the Left’s precious mantra of middle out and bottom up actually could have serious effect.