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Black women-owned US venture capital fund counters conservative's race lawsuit

Published 08/10/2023, 05:24 PM
Updated 08/11/2023, 07:46 PM
© Reuters. Attorney Ben Crump, Fearless Fund co-partners Arian Simone, Ayana Parsons, Lead counsel Mylan Denerstein and Co-Counsel Alphonso David pose for a picture at the end of a press conference in New York, U.S., August 10, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) -The founders of a venture capital fund devoted to funding Black women-owned businesses on Thursday defended their efforts to support underrepresented entrepreneurs in the face of a lawsuit by a conservative activist accusing it of racial discrimination.

The Fearless Fund's leaders and its lawyers during a news conference in New York pledged to fight a lawsuit filed last week by a prominent affirmative action opponent who led the successful U.S. Supreme Court challenge to the consideration of race in college admissions to promote diversity.

The lawsuit was by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, a group founded by activist Edward Blum, who through another organization pursued the cases against Harvard University and University of North Carolina that led the Supreme Court in June to end affirmative action in higher education.

"We are not scared," Arian Simone, the chief executive and co-founder of the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund, said. "We are fearless."

According to the Fearless Fund, women of color business founders in 2022 received only 0.39% of the $288 billion that venture capital firms deployed. The fund aims to remedy that and counts as investors JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) and MasterCard.

The news conference was part of the fund's first public response to the lawsuit, which alleged it unlawfully allowed only Black women small business owners to be eligible for a competition that awards $20,000 in grants and other resources.

"I think it's going to be a stretch to explain why Hispanic and Native American women are not eligible, as well as Asian and white women," Blum said on Thursday.

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Alphonso David, a civil rights lawyer who has joined Fearless Fund's defense, criticized the lawsuit's "cynical" claim that the fund violated Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. The law, barring racial bias in private contracts, was adopted after slavery was abolished in the U.S. Civil War's aftermath.

"This is a frivolous attempt to prevent progress from winning," said Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights lawyer and member of the defense team, which is led by the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.

Latest comments

It is historically normal for Democrats to be racist.
NAACP is next because they're all a bunch of racists too.
Democrats told me that the phrase "colored people" is racist and "people of color" is not racist. I hope the NACCP realizes their own name is racist.
*NAACP
If you have black skin and are proud of it and think that you should treat black people differently than white people and you think that white people who are proud of their skin are racist, hate to be the one to break it to you, but you are the racist.
the first step in ending racism, is to stop being racist. this find does nothing to help anyone.
Except black women entrepreneurs; you forgot about them.
Black people have equality. What communists want is equity. They use whatever demographic variable they need to try an impose their communism on the world. They do not care about skin color, what they care about is redistribution. They want everybody to be equally poor slaves for the government.
I can't argue against much of what you've said, however... it's not black people doing it. it's well funded political power makers that manipulate them into believing it's help....and it's crushing them. 100 years after slavery end, there was progress. 150 years later it's gone backwards... it's just another form of slavery.
 Agree, it is driven by globalists who want to turn the entire world into China 2.0.
Equality and equity are not the same thing. Democrats like Brad are extremely racist and see skin color as the only possible variable to explain thing in life. In reality, there is more to people than their skin color that may account for differences in outcome. Using past racism to justify current racism is still racism, no matter how you try and spin it.
Sure. It's racism to attempt to rectify this: "women of color business founders in 2022 received only 0.39% of the $288 billion that venture capital firms deployed."
It is discrimination. Equality should be equal not matter race or gender. It's not equality when you cater to a certain race or gender.
Using race card to pursue advantages and privileges .....if you can't beat them
Democrats have historically been racists and still are today.
@John Hat Democrats are the Party of slavery after all.
Many years ago, the Pigs cannot get enough food or the chance to get food. The pigs cried foul many years as they were suffering. The rest of the forest slowly realised that and give the more foor and the chance to find food. Fast forward, the pigs are able to find food but now they bar the monkeys and the rabbit of the chance to get more food (like them?). THey kept all the resources to find food to themselves and fellow pig. THe best part, they shamelessly publicise their ill behaviour and is not frighten when their bad behaviour were pointed out. Lesson: Come on brother, Mama please don't treat others the way you don't like to be treated. Be graceful and grateful. We all live in the same forest.
The part of the story that you are missing is that when the pigs let the monkeys live equally among them, the monkeys that made up 13% of the population commit 60% of violent crimes and demand that the pigs hand over free money to them.
Black people are so "oppressed" that they are the racial group that has the most money of any racial group in the entire US having taxpayer money tossed at them simply because of the color of their skin.
So you're saying African-Americans dont pay taxes? and when is the last time you looked at the US federal buget or US income statistics? This comments section is pretty funny, obviously a lot of wasted brain matter here on talking down on people that are different from you and making up fictious realities.
when you only give to 1 group, it is racist. Same way BET is racist.
Of course you are not scared, you are not the victim and are not oppressed, you are the oppressor in this case trying to push anti-white racism.
If you brag about the color of your skin and use it to advance your career, you are not the victim, you are the racist. DEI is explicitly racist and creates more racism. It is why "equal opportunities" makes people trust black people less. When we do not know if a minority person go their position because of their skin color, why would we trust them? Why would you trust a black doctor if they only got in because they are black when an asian or white person has to do twice as well to get to the same place?
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