Fearless Fund’s Oral Argument: Throwing the Baby Out Too
Click on the link to listen to the oral argument. Meanwhile here is a depressing write up from the Associated Press. And here is the part that gives me a real big headache:
Judge Kevin Newsom, a Trump appointee, pushed back against the Fearless Fund’s argument that the grants are protected by the First Amendment because they are charitable donations. He asked the Fearless Fund’s attorneys whether the same protection would apply to a contest open only to white applicants. That’s a question frequently raised by Edward Blum, the conservative activist who leads the American Alliance for Equal Rights and who was behind the Supreme Court case that ended affirmative action in college admissions. “I think that’s a pretty simple yes or no,” Newsom said, interrupting when the attorney for the Fearless Fund, Jason Schwartz, started to reply. Schwartz replied that a white-only contest set up under the same parameters would indeed be protected by the First Amendment. “No matter how repugnant I might find that, the First Amendment protects all speech,” Schwartz said. Pressed to explain how the case differs from a business that excludes minorities, Schwartz argued that charitable donations intended to promote a cause differ from commercial transactions such as employment and housing.