Fearless Fund Launches New Global Initiative One Year After Anti-DEI Lawsuit
The Fearless Fund has launched a new initiative one year after settling a lawsuit with the American Alliance for Equal Rights (AAER). The announcement of Fearless Global Initiative was made at an event hosted by The Fearless Fund, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
“This is (as) good for the white Kentucky coal miner as it is the Latino California farmworker,” Founding Partner and CEO Arian Simone told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Demographic equity means delivering the resources, the financial support, at a scale that reflects the population. This is something we can all get behind.”
The Fearless Global Initiative
The project will place a high priority on “demographic equity,” a theory that aims to better match funding, contract, and investment flows with the demographics of the population.
Demographic equity means “the demographics of the people must match the demographics of the contracts, the investing and the funding allocations,” the Fearless founder said. “[The Fearless Global Initiative is about] making sure that we are active participants in helping get certain policies written in order to support the kind of work that we do.”
US Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), Liberian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sara Beysolow Nyanti, CNN anchor Abby Phillip, and civil rights attorney Ben Crump were among the attendees at the event hosted in New York.
The lawsuit from AAER
In August 2023, AAER sued Fearless Fund, claiming that the Strivers Grant, sponsored by Mastercard, violated the Civil Rights Act of 1866 by excluding white founders. The Act, originally designed to protect formerly enslaved people, prohibits racial discrimination in contracts. In June 2024, a court ruled that the program likely violated the law, leading to a preliminary injunction.
This program has not been operating since it entered the appeals back in September 2023, and it was at the conclusion of the grant program when the court case began in August 2023. Fearless Fund has announced that the program will not recommence.
After the lawsuit, Fearless Fund lost several partnerships, and information on other grants for women of color were removed from its website. This new initiative marks a significant step forward for The Fearless Fund.
Image: Jamie McCarthy
