Latest news with #AmericanAllianceForEqualRights
Reuters
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Reuters
ABA defends its diversity scholarships as protected free speech
June 17 (Reuters) - The American Bar Association said on Monday that a scholarship program designed to boost diversity among law students is protected free speech, in a bid to toss a lawsuit brought by a prominent conservative group alleging the program is discriminatory. The ABA's 25-year-old Legal Opportunity Scholarship is protected under the First Amendment, the organization said in a motion to dismiss, opens new tab filed in an Illinois federal court. The ABA also claimed that plaintiff American Alliance for Equal Rights lacks standing to sue. 'The ABA has a First Amendment right to distribute funds as it deems appropriate, consistent with its organizational goals,' the motion said. The Alliance, which is led by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, had sued the ABA in April alleging that the Legal Opportunity Scholarship program discriminates against white applicants because they are ineligible to apply. Blum was the architect of the 2023 Supreme Court affirmative action case that barred the consideration of race in college admissions. The Alliance said it is representing an unnamed white male law school applicant who alleges he would apply for the $15,000 scholarship were he eligible. The ABA awards between 20 and 25 such scholarships annually to incoming law students, according to its motion to dismiss. That anonymous member lacks standing to sue because the lawsuit does not show he was 'ready and able' to apply for the Legal Opportunity Scholarship, the ABA claims. He did not take any 'concrete steps to express his interest in, or apply to' the scholarship program beyond 'words of general intent,' according to the motion. Reached by email for comment on Tuesday, Blum said none of the 18 lawsuits the Alliance has filed in the past two years alleging racial discrimination have been dismissed for lack of standing. 'It seems likely that this assertion will fail,' he said. Blum also called the ABA's First Amendment claim a "Herculean stretch." The ABA declined to comment on Tuesday. The ABA's motion also claimed that the Legal Opportunity Scholarships are discretionary gifts and not contracts that are subject to the federal law requiring equal rights in making and enforcing contracts. The ABA had in October revised the criteria for its judicial clerkship program, which encourages judges to hire diverse law clerks, to eliminate references to minority students and "communities of color." The ABA made that change after a different conservative legal group, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, had filed a complaint against the ABA with the U.S. Department of Education in May 2024 and threatened further legal action, alleging that the ABA was illegally discriminating by using racial quotas. Read more: ABA sued over diversity scholarships by conservative group ABA strikes 'minority' and 'of color' from clerkship criteria amid lawsuit threat
Reuters
15-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Southwest Airlines likely to pay 1 cent to end DEI-related lawsuit
May 15 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge signaled he will order Southwest Airlines (LUV.N), opens new tab to pay 1 cent to end a lawsuit by a conservative group alleging that a now-defunct program awarding free flights to Hispanic college students was discriminatory. U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater on Wednesday rejected a request by Edward Blum's American Alliance for Equal Rights to address the merits of its case, after Southwest "unconditionally surrendered" by scrapping its ¡Lánzate! program. Blum has tried for decades to remove racial considerations from parts of American life, including a successful push to essentially end affirmative action in college admissions. U.S. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, has made removing diversity, equity and inclusion policies from society a hallmark of his second White House term. Southwest's ¡Lánzate! program had since 2004 provided assistance to 1,500 Hispanic undergraduate and graduate students who lived at least 200 miles (322 km) from campus. Fitzwater said it would waste time and money to keep litigating whether the program violated a Civil War-era law barring racial bias in contracting, because the plaintiff achieved "total victory" after Southwest effectively gave up. "Granting an obstinate plaintiff total victory upon the defendant's unconditional surrender is a reasonable response to the problems and needs confronting the court's fair administration of justice," the Dallas-based judge wrote. Fitzwater gave both sides until May 28 to object. Southwest, based in Dallas, had no immediate comment on Thursday. Lawyers for the plaintiff did not immediately respond to requests for comment. While the plaintiff had sought 1 cent in damages, its lawyers said the case's merits should be addressed because it concerned "issues of substantial public importance" regarding intentional ethnic discrimination by a major company. "Southwest cannot avoid liability by paying the Alliance via a judgment that's not really a judgment, any more than it could avoid liability by paying the Alliance via no judgment," the lawyers wrote. The case is American Alliance for Equal Rights v Southwest Airlines Co, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, No. 24-01209.
