A March 6, 2024, Washington Post article reports that a federal judge in Texas has ordered a 55-year-old federal agency to open its doors to all races. This agency, the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), was specifically created to help minority-owned businesses. This ruling, which states that the MBDA can’t presume that businesses owned by Black, Latino, and other minorities are inherently disadvantaged, could put countless government programs that rely on this presumption at risk.
This decision is a huge blow to minority-owned businesses. By challenging the MBDA’s core mission, the ruling threatens to remove a vital lifeline for many entrepreneurs who already face systemic barriers. This isn’t just about one agency; it’s about the countless government programs that have been built to address historical inequalities. This ruling jeopardizes that progress and makes it harder for minority-owned businesses to get the support they need to succeed and thrive.
A March 5th, 2024, efinancialcareers.com article (2) reports, “Banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have quietly removed the ethnic and gender criteria for applying to their diversity schemes. Goldman has opened its “Possibilities Summit” for Black college students to white students; JPMorgan’s summer fellowships for Black undergraduate sophomores are now for everyone; Bank of America’s internal diversity groups are admitting people from the country clubs. It writes, “Goldman Sachs has exceeded its targets for diversity hiring, but the change of heart isn’t because the diversity job is done. It’s because lawyers are advising banks that offering preferential treatment to particular groups might be illegal.”
On July 13th, 2023, Thirteen Republican attorneys general wrote and sent a letter (3) warning Fortune 100 CEOs against taking race into consideration as part of their employment and contracting practices. They wrote, “We, the undersigned Attorneys General of 13 States, write to remind you of your obligations as an employer under federal and state law to refrain from discriminating on the basis of race, whether under the label of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” or otherwise. Treating people differently because of the color of their skin, even for benign purposes, is unlawful and wrong. Companies that engage in racial discrimination should and will face serious legal consequences.”
On June 29th, 2023, in a historic decision (4), the U.S. Supreme Court effectively ended race-conscious admission programs at colleges and universities across the country. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Many universities have for too long… concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin,” he wrote. “Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice.” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote regarding the same decision, “Thursday’s decision sees the universities’ admissions policies for what they are: rudderless, race-based preferences. … Those policies fly in the face of our colorblind Constitution.”
All these statements intimate or outright say that race-based preferences are made illegal by the Constitution. Ironically, they also invoke language from the Civil Rights Acts. They repeat the statements that say It prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. This is where it all becomes so disingenuous. This is when, as Black Americans, we feel like we are the marks of some long con game. These initiatives are led by lawyers and not just any lawyers but lawyers who are supreme court justices and attorney generals. Lawyers who have studied the constitution and know history. There is no way that Clarence Thomas didn’t know that the biggest and longest debate of the founding fathers in the room, while writing the Constitution, was of a 160-word section written by Thomas Jefferson denouncing slavery in the 13 colonies, a section that was ultimately removed by them because they were concerned about alienating the colonies that relied on slavery for its economic health. Thomas uses phrases like a colorblind Constitution to justify dismantling raced-based initiatives. Colorblind Constitution… really? We can’t get farther away from colorblind than our Constitution. Then for the 13 republican attorneys general to use the civil rights amendment as the basis for their directive to corporate America to stop raced-based initiatives. How ironic and cunning is it for them to use a law that was created to bring civil rights to African Americans, a group that was denied rights because of the color of their skin, to say that the same law outlaws raced-based initiatives. The entire law is a race-based initiative.
This whole idea of raced-based initiatives being illegal is just a progression from the idea of reverse racism. Reverse racism is usually claimed by white people when they feel discriminated against because of their skin color. I won’t spend time discussing reverse racism. Read this article (5). It does a great job of covering the topic.
To really understand American history is to understand why the Civil Rights acts were necessary to begin with. When the average American doesn’t know about the land and property that were stolen from Black families over centuries, equating to the loss of trillions in dollars of generational wealth, or, when it’s not taught that the separation of Black families and the lynching of Black fathers and sons were so common that whole towns had picnics and sold post cards celebrating the events. When it is not known of the hundreds of Black Americans that were massacred when their towns were attacked and burned by White mobs. Or, when it is taught that slavery wasn’t that bad, that it was good for the enslaved, or when it is neglected to be taught about the propaganda promoting the inferiority of Black people, through science and religion, so that slavery and Jim Crow would be more acceptable to the general population. Then, it is easier to eradicate or gut laws that took decades to pass. How? Because the general populace never understood why they were necessary to begin with. To them they are the result of some bleeding-heart liberals who want to assuage their guilt by giving their resources away. Resources that they feel they earned solely by the sweat of their brow.
This is why teaching Black History is important. When Laws are studied at face value, without context, the wrong conclusion and hence the wrong precedence are set. But this is why the teaching of Black History in our schools is so vehemently fought against. Why its prohibited from being included in American history. Why books that do no more than mention Black historical figures are being banned. Because Black History fills the gaps. It explains that Black Americans fought just as hard, even harder; worked just as hard, even harder. Bled just as much, even more, built just as much, even more, than any other American, and deserve everything that these laws provide to them, even more. So no, race-based initiatives are not illegal. This entire country is built on a race-based initiative. It’s called the Constitution but the color that it protects is white.
2 https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/diversity-hiring-banks
3 https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/AGLetterFortune100713.pdf
4 https://www.npr.org/2023/06/29/1181138066/affirmative-action-supreme-court-decision
5 https://www.aclrc.com/myth-of-reverse-racism.
Edward Odom
