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The Eleventh Circuit ruled in June 2024 that the Fearless Strivers Grant Contest was substantially likely to violate federal anti-discrimination law and ordered a preliminary injunction. That was not a final trial judgment. In September 2024, the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER) announced that it had settled with Fearless Fund and that the contest had been permanently closed and would not reopen.
What was the Fearless Strivers Grant Contest?
The contest was an entrepreneurship funding competition open only to businesses owned by Black women. The Eleventh Circuit described it as a grant contest limited on that basis in its June 3, 2024 opinion. Read the court’s opinion.
What did the Eleventh Circuit decide?
On June 3, 2024, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed that AAER had standing to bring its challenge. It otherwise reversed the district court’s denial of preliminary relief and sent the case back with instructions to enter a preliminary injunction. The panel concluded that the contest was substantially likely to violate Section 1981 and substantially unlikely to receive First Amendment protection. Read the Eleventh Circuit ruling.
Section 1981 bars private parties from discriminating on the basis of race in making or enforcing contracts. The court’s ruling addressed whether the contest’s eligibility restriction likely conflicted with that law.
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Was this a final ruling that Fearless Fund could never give grants to Black women?
No. The appeal concerned whether to grant a preliminary injunction, not a final trial judgment resolving every claim. The panel made a preliminary assessment of the likelihood of success and the other requirements for preliminary relief. It did not issue a final merits judgment declaring that every grant program limited to Black women is unlawful.
Accordingly, the June ruling is best described narrowly: the panel found this contest substantially likely to violate Section 1981 and directed the district court to enter a preliminary injunction while the case proceeded.
What happened after the appeals court ruling?
On September 11, 2024, AAER announced that it had reached a settlement with Fearless Fund. In that announcement, AAER said Fearless Fund had permanently closed the Strivers Grant Contest and would not reopen it. The closure statement is AAER’s account; the announcement is not the settlement agreement itself. Read AAER’s settlement announcement.
AAER president Edward Blum said the organization had encouraged Fearless Fund to open the contest to Hispanic, Asian, Native American and white women, but that Fearless Fund had decided to end it entirely. That comment appears in AAER’s announcement and should be understood as the organization’s description of its position, not as a term independently verified from the settlement text.
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Can Fearless Fund issue grants to Black women now?
The public announcement establishes that the Strivers Grant Contest was closed and would not reopen; it does not establish that Fearless Fund is barred from making every kind of grant to Black women. Nor does the appellate ruling, which concerned a particular contest and preliminary relief, resolve the legality of all programs with race-conscious eligibility rules. The legal answer depends on the program’s terms and circumstances.
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