On Saturday, a panel of federal appellate judges temporary blocked the private and Atlanta-based Fearless Fund from awarding $20,000 grants to Black women entrepreneurs.
They wrote that the program was “racially exclusionary” and “substantially likely” violating a federal law that forbids racial discrimination when it comes to contracting.
Sadly, the temporary injunction means that the Fearless Fund cannot close its application window. Edward Blum—the same man who implored the Supreme Court to bar race-conscious college admissions policies—is behind the racist crusade against the fund.
A majority on the three-judge appeals panel believed that the First Amendment does not protect the Fearless Fund from awarding grants only to Black women. Two of those nasty judges, Robert J. Luck and Andrew L. Brasher, were both appointed by Donald Trump.
In the dissent, Judge Charles R. Wilson—who was appointed by Bill Clinton—wrote that he would deny the injunction as he believed the alliance did not meet the requirements. Wilson called out the plaintiffs’ citation of the Civil Right Act of 1866.
“It is a perversion of Congressional intent to use [the law] against a remedial program whose purpose is to ‘bridge the gap in venture capital funding for women of color founders’ — a gap that is the result of centuries of intentional racial discrimination,” Wilson wrote.
In addition, Saturday’s decision reverses U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash’s Tuesday ruling in which a request by the plantiff—Blum’s American Alliance for Equal Rights—was denied.
Now, a separate 11th Circuit panel will be left to decide if the Fearless Fund will be blocked from awarding money through its grant contest as the case is litigated in district court. It is unknown when that decision will be made.