Fearless Foundation Antagonists Set Their Sights On Richest Ever Nonprofit in History
A record number of Black head coaches were hired in the NFL this year. That’s progress that the business world is noticing, apparently. But at the same time the anti-CRT, anti-DEI folks are having a field day since Students For Fair Admissions. An article in the Associated Press talks about what I consider the tragically hapless argument that Fearless Foundation attorneys made a few weeks ago. That charitable grants exclusively to Black women entrepreneurs is protected free speech.
A federal appeals court ordered the fund in October to temporarily halt its grant program in response to arguments that it discriminates against people who are not Black. The fund’s attorneys have countered that the grants are not contracts but rather, donations protected by the First Amendment. Leading the challenge against the Fearless Fund is Edward Blum, president of the American Alliance for Equal Rights, a nonprofit that received less than $50,000 in both 2021 and 2022, according to tax filings, but it’s unclear who its donors are.
Wait, what? If discrimination in grant making is protected free speech, then I am a monkey’s uncle and Bob Jones is a cousin on my light-skinned mama’s side. Its not, I’m not, and he ain’t. At least not as far as I can tell. They lost my family’s luggage with all our records during the middle passage, ya know.
But neither are remedial programs designed to reverse the impact of things described in the 1619 project acts of discrimination in the first place. That argument should never have been conceded, explicitly or implicitly. A constitutional law scholar told me a few days ago that the Fearless Foundation case is immensely important and that some of the top Supreme Court litigators would likely sign on, pro bono, if they had been solicited. Maybe they were but I sure can’t tell right now. And now the anti-blacks have filed another suit. This time against Hidden Star, an exempt organization that makes grants exclusively to women and minority owned businesses. According to the verified complaint:
3. Hidden Star is flouting §1981, inking contracts with some races but not others. Under its Galaxy Grant Program, Hidden Star awards $2,750 to several contestants. In exchange for a shot at $2,750, contestants must agree to pay a monthly membership fee; license their “User Content”; let Hidden Star use their name, image, and likeness; and more.
4. Eligibility for the contest depends on an applicant’s race. The Galaxy Grant Program is “open only to persons” who are “a confirmable ethnic minority or female.” So between two male applicants—one black and one white—the latter cannot apply because he is the wrong race.
5. This kind of rank discrimination was never lawful, even before Harvard held that colleges cannot use race in admissions. But in case Hidden Star needed a reminder, Harvard reaffirms that “[e]liminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” 600 U.S. at 206. No racial discrimination is benign: It always “demeans the dignity and worth” of every American “to be judged” by his or her race “instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.” Id. at 220.
The convulsive and reactionary movement — stoked by the election of Barack Hussein Obama and then Kamala Harris in the manner that emancipation and reconstruction stoked the Ku Klux Klan — will reach its zenith if the Fearless Foundation and now Hidden Star are not rightly defended. By better logic, if nothing else.
But now the anti-blacks have really gone too far. They are messing with all that is sacred in America. A few days ago they sent a letter to the NFL using Students for Fair Admissions as a cudgel against the most lucrative, once tax exempt organizations ever invented. Now look, I love me some Christian McCaffery. Few of the mostly black other players can even tackle that white boy and when they do, he makes them pay. He’s a “running fool,” just like Forrest Gump. But even that ain’t enough for the anti-blacks, who have threatened the NFL because of its “Rooney Rule,” named after the greatest owner of the greatest sports franchise that ever existed. That’s right, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Thanks a lot Clarence Thomas. Here is a bit from the letter the anti-blacks sent to the NFL:
In 2003, the member clubs of the NFL voted to adopt the “Rooney Rule” for the purpose of “increas[ing] the number of minorities hired in head coach, general manager, and executive positions.” According to the NFL, the initial focus of the Rooney Rule was to address “the historically low number of minorities in head coaching positions.” Thus, the original iteration of the rule “required every team with a head coaching vacancy to interview at least one or more diverse candidates before making a new hire.” The Rooney Rule has been amended several times since its adoption and now requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for head coach and general manager vacancies, at least one external minority for a coordinator job, and at least one minority and/or female candidate for senior level positions, such as club president and senior executives. In 2020, the owners of the NFL member clubs approved an amendment to the Rooney Rule that awards teams third-round compensatory draft picks for two years if it developed a minority executive or coach who left for another team and would award three years of compensatory third-round draft picks if it developed and lost both a minority executive and minority coach to another team. The Rooney Rule facially violates 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a).
I think this has gone on just about long enough, doggonit.
darryll k. jones