has ruled that a federal agency created to help minority-owned businesses must open up its services to all races and ethnicities, including white people.was created in 1969 under the Nixon administration to assist racially and ethnically marginalized groups of people, “including Hispanic and Latino American, Asian Pacific American, African American, and Native American businesses.”
“Plaintiffs hail from different states and have different circumstances, backgrounds, and businesses. But they have much in common: they all worked hard to get where they are, they all overcame obstacles in pursuit of the American Dream, they all care deeply for their businesses, and they all wanted—but couldn’t obtain—assistance from the same federal program,” read the ruling. “They’re also all white, a salient detail in this case.
The federal judge also claimed there was an issue of semantics, that the agency’s language serves “socially or economically disadvantaged individual.”Near the end of the ruling, Pittman compares Irish immigrants in the 19th century seeking employment as being equivalent to Black Americans seeking employment during the Jim Crow era.