‘Racial Reckoning’ — Progressive Insurance Faces Class Action Lawsuit Over $25,000 Race-Based Grants

Corporations that discriminate against individuals based on race are in the middle of the kind of “racial reckoning” they certainly don’t want.

Even before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race-based admissions policies in colleges and universities violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, America First Legal (AFL) filed lawsuits against corporations and schools with policies that favor certain races over others.

AFL sent a cease-and-desist letter to accounting firm Pricewaterhouse Cooper last month over racial discrimination in hiring and contracting. AFL also asked the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to open an investigation. AFL has gone after Starbucks, Unilever, candy bar manufacturer Mars, Inc., and other companies. The legal firm also filed a class action lawsuit against six medical schools in Texas in January over racial preferences in admissions.

Now Progressive Insurance will have to account for its discriminatory practices. AFL filed a class action lawsuit against the company last week over a program that offers $25,000 grants to 10 black-owned small businesses to buy commercial vehicles. White-owned businesses need not apply. From AFL:

Progressive does not allow businesses owned by members of other races to even apply for these grants, and AFL’s client was barred from applying for this grant simply because he is not black. Progressive unlawfully offered these contractual benefits only to black-owned small businesses — a patent violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, which outlaws all forms of racial discrimination in the making of contracts.

Here’s the truth: the people who run these corporations have always known that discriminating against individuals based on race was against the law. They did it because they got away with it in the name of “diversity.” But DEI’s days are numbered.

People who suspect that a college or a business has discriminated against them now have firepower in the form of a Supreme Court decision that makes it clear that racial discrimination, even in the name of “diversity,” is illegal.

“Progressive’s racially-discriminatory arrangement is offensive to the American ideal, and we will fight to vindicate his rights and the rights of all similarly situated Americans,” said Gene Hamilton, AFL vice president and general counsel.

Photo credit: By Michael Rivera – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, link