Fearless Fund ends its grant program for Black women to settle lawsuit

In a legal settlement stemming from a right-wing lawsuit, the Fearless Fund, an investment group geared toward women of color, has agreed to end its grant program for Black women. 

The news, announced Wednesday, prevents this particular lawsuit from making its way to the Supreme Court, where the conservative majority could have used it to curtail race-based funding — that’s what civil rights attorney Ben Crump told The Associated Press. And Arian Simone, who runs the fund, said the organization intends to continue assisting “under-resourced entrepreneurs.” 

But for now, the settlement should be seen as a victory for conservatives who’ve attacked programs designed to assist Black Americans and other people of color. The suit against the Fearless Fund was led by conservative activist Edward Blum’s group, the same group whose suit resulted in the Supreme Court’s banning race-conscious college admissions policies (and we’re already beginning to see the negative impacts of that ruling). As Slate explains, Blum appears to be on a quest to “crush racial justice” in the U.S. via the court system. 

For decades, Black conservatives like Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele and Larry Elder have preached about the need for Black folks to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. And yet the Fearless Fund was designed to do exactly that. Now its bootstraps have been essentially cut by right-wing lawyers because it was engaging in the very capitalism and intra-communal uplift conservatives have urged Black folks to embrace for decades.

So Blum’s latest win has shown all those books and op-eds by Black conservatives over the years — who insisted their movement stands for personal responsibility over so-called government handouts — aren’t good for much more than kindling.