A U.S. federal court of appeals panel suspended a venture capital firm’s grant program for Black women business owners, ruling that a conservative group is likely to prevail in its lawsuit claiming that the program is discriminatory.

The ruling against the Atlanta-based Fearless Fund is another victory for conservative groups waging a legal battle against corporate diversity programs that have targeted dozens of companies and government institutions.

The case against the Fearless Fund was brought last year by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, a group led by Edward Blum, the conservative activist behind the Supreme Court case that ended affirmative action in college admissions.

Blum applauded the ruling, saying “programs that exclude certain individuals because of their race such as the ones the Fearless Fund has designed and implemented are unjust and polarizing.”

Fearless Fund CEO and Founder Arian Simone said the ruling was “devastating” for the organizations and the women it has invested in.

“The message these judges sent today is that diversity in Corporate America, education, or anywhere else should not exist,” she said in statement. “These judges bought what a small group of white men were selling.”

In a 2-1 ruling, the panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Miami found that Blum was likely to prevail in his lawsuit claiming the grant program violates section 1981 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race when enforcing contracts.

The court ordered the Fearless Fund to suspend its Strivers Grant Contest, which provides $20,000 to businesses that are majority owned by Black women, for the remainder of the lawsuit that is being litigated in a federal court in Atlanta.

The appeals court panel, consisting of two judges appointed by former President Donald Trump and one appointed by former President Barack Obama, rejected the Fearless Fund’s arguments that the grants are not contracts but charitable donations protected by the First Amendment right to free speech.

Judge Robin Rosenbaum, an Obama appointee, disagreed, likening the plaintiffs’ claims of harm to soccer players trying to win by “flopping on the field, faking an injury.” Rosenbaum said none of the plaintiffs demonstrated that they had any real intention to apply for the grants.

— Associated Press

Utility to pay $178M wildfire settlement

Pacific Power, part of PacifiCorp, said Monday it has agreed to a $178 million settlement with over 400 Oregon plaintiffs in the latest multimillion-dollar payout related to the deadly 2020 wildfires that ravaged the state.

The majority of the 403 plaintiffs in the settlement Monday were affected by the Echo Mountain Complex Fire that devastated Oregon’s central coast, said George McCoy, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys, while others were impacted by the Santiam Fire that raged east of the state capital Salem in northwestern Oregon.

Musk’s X says it’s open to adult content

The social media platform X says it will now formally allow people to show consensual adult content, as long as it is clearly labeled as such. The move makes official a policy already in place when the platform was known as Twitter, before billionaire Elon Musk purchased it in 2022.

In a recent update on its website, the San Francisco-based company said users “should be able to create, distribute, and consume material related to sexual themes as long as it is consensually produced and distributed. Sexual expression, whether visual or written, can be a legitimate form of artistic expression.”

Adult material was allowed under the pre-Musk Twitter as well, although there was no official policy in place. X said it is restricting adult content for children and for adult users who choose not to see it.

X’s policy stands in contrast to other social media platforms, such as Meta’s properties — Instagram and Facebook — as well as TikTok and Google’s YouTube.

— From news services