Earlier this month, a federal court delivered yet another blow to government efforts to close the racial equity gap and better serve Black and brown communities.
The latest set back came by a ruling from Judge Mark Pittman that ordered the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) to no longer consider race or ethnicity when deploying its services to U.S. small businesses.
“This is not one attack, but it’s a series of attacks on the measures that the federal government has put in place to remedy,” Patrice Willoughby, senior vice president of global policy and impact the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, told theGrio.
Using the same constitutional argument the U.S. Supreme Court used to overturn race-conscious affirmative action in college admissions last year, Pittman, appointed to the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas by former President Donald Trump, said MBDA’s qualification for “disadvantaged” business owners violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
In other words, the judge argued the agency violated the constitutional rights of white business owners.
“While the agency’s work may help alleviate opportunity gaps faced by MBEs (minority business owners), two wrongs do not make a right,” Pittman wrote in his ruling.
Elected officials and advocates are decrying the federal court ruling, blaming a movement led by conservatives and affirmed by Republican-appointed judges that is undoing decades-long efforts to right historic wrongs that have afflicted Black and brown communities. The MBDA ruling, proponents fear, could further exacerbate existing racial disparities in ownership and wealth.
“We should really look at these as the pushback against Black economic progress,” said Willoughby, a former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus. “It’s very clear that, because discrimination continues to exist, these programs are…
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