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Blum & Co. Make It Harder For Black Female Entrepreneurs Because That's How Civil Rights Work Now

We really are in the worst timeline, huh.

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money Young woman closing her eyes while pointing her finger on dollar notes

Pictured: 14th Amendment violation

Maintaining a business can be difficult — about half of them fail within the first five years. But you know what can be even harder? Starting the damned thing as a Black woman. The venture capital firm Fearless Fund created a $20k grant specifically for Black women starting businesses. In doing so, they targeted a woefully underserved community:“[F]irms started by Black women received only .0006% of VC funding raised by startups between 2009 and 2017.” Empowered by the Supreme Court’s history-blind reading of the 14th Amendment, Edward Blum sued Fearless Fund for daring to equitably address the massive underfunding of Black business. AJC covered their recent settlement:

In a 2-1 ruling in June, a three-judge 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled against Fearless and issued a preliminary injunction against the grant.

…

“The American Alliance for Equal Rights encouraged the Fearless Fund to open its grant contest to Hispanic, Asian, Native American and white women but Fearless has decided instead to end it entirely,” Edward Blum, the president of the Alliance, said in the statement.

Blum’s statement is, of course, posturing. Even if Fearless Fund licked their wounds and opened up the grant to a broader audience of women, the next suit would argue that the grant discriminates against men and we’d be back at the Chicago Bears square.

The setback hasn’t dampened Fearless Fund’s purpose of “helping and empowering women of color entrepreneurs in need,” but it’s unclear how they will do so with Blum’s Brigade at the ready to sue over targeted means of ameliorating systemic inequality.

Atlanta VC Firm Ends Business Grant For Black Women After Discrimination Lawsuit [AJC]

Earlier: Got A Scholarship For Women? Prepare For Trouble.
The Slippery Slope Of Ending Affirmative Action Has Moved On To Its Next Target: Women And ‘Proxies For Diversity’

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Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at [email protected] and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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