A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the U.S. Minority Business Development Agency, founded during the Nixon administration, must avail itself to disadvantaged entrepreneurs of all races and ethnicities, including whites.

The summary judgment rendered on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, appointed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, was the latest in a recent series of federal court decisions rolling back decades of affirmative action programs aimed at remedying racial discrimination.

Pittman, a judge in the Forth Worth branch of the Northern Texas District, sided with two white businessmen who sued the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), a branch of the Commerce Department, last year after being denied benefits on the basis of race.

The plaintiffs were told they were ineligible for agency assistance because they were not members of any of the races or ethnicities included on a list of qualified minorities presumed to be disadvantaged and thus entitled to services, according to the judge’s summary of the case.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Why? Are you denying then bank loans in 2024? Did you redline them in 1965? Pass criminal sentencing laws meant to destroy their community in 1992? Are you not even looking at job applications with names like Matt and Adam?

    • beardown
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      8 months ago

      None of those things are lawfully happening today towards any immutable traits

      • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        The effects of those policies very obviously ripple out today, and many of them absolutely are still in effect regardless. Racism never ended.

        • beardown
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          8 months ago

          Racism never ended

          Did anti Semitism? If not then why aren’t jews also treated as beneficiaries?

          Also, native Americans are currently living on apartheid reservation systems. Why don’t we ever mention them in these discussions?

          • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I don’t know dude. But these problems certainly aren’t solved by forcing organizations which exist to benefit minorities into wasting their resources on the majority of people who do not suffer racial discrimination. Obviously.

            • beardown
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              8 months ago

              But jews and Native Americans do. And ethnic whites used to. Why are all of them ignored?

              • Olhonestjim@lemmy.world
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                8 months ago

                I just said I don’t know dude.

                Why are you trying to distract from the very racist decision by this judge to waste the resources of an anti racist organization?

                If you want to quibble whether certain minorities ought to be included, but aren’t, fine. But that has nothing to do with this court’s decision, and nobody is going to be helped by it except for racist, conservative whites playing the victim.