The Fearless Fund was temporarily banned from funding black entrepreneurs.
As AFROTECH™ previously reported, the venture capital fund was sued in August 2023 by Edward Blum and his American Equal Rights Alliance group. To eliminate “overt racism” Black women, The Washington Post stock.
Initially, U.S. District Judge Thomas W. Thrash ruled in favor of Fearless Fund, but that ruling was blocked by a division of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on September 30, 2023.
The Fearless Fund has appealed the September ruling, seeking to have the ruling overturned.
Ariane Simone, co-founder and CEO of Fearless Fund, told CNN:
“I am devastated for the young girls of color who have dreams and will grow up in a country that is determined to deny them the opportunity to achieve them. On their behalf, we will turn our pain into purpose and fight with all our might.”
She added: “America is supposed to be a country where we have the freedom to achieve, the freedom to earn and the freedom to prosper. But when we tried to give minority groups a level playing field, our freedoms were stifled.”
Ayana Parsons, co-founder and general partner at Fearless Fund, commented via LinkedIn: “I am extremely disappointed in today’s federal court ruling in American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) v. Fearless. The court’s ruling against Fearless Fund and Fearless Foundation is a setback for women of color and all marginalized communities.”
Looking ahead, Fearless Fund and its legal team are considering their options.
“This is the first ruling in the more than 150-year history of post-Civil War civil rights law to block private charitable support to a racial or ethnic group,” Jason Schwartz, an attorney at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher who represents the Fearless Fund, said in an emailed statement to The Washington Post. “The dissenting judges, the district court and other courts agree with us that these types of claims should not be allowed.”
