Lawsuit Against Texas County’s Race-Based Small Business Program Points To SCOTUS Affirmative Action Ruling

A lawsuit filed Monday against a Texas county’s race-based small business assistance program cites the Supreme Court’s recent decision striking down affirmative action.

Greg Gomm, a white, male software company owner represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL), sued Bexar County, Texas, for a program that awards business owners with grants of up to $50,000 using a scoring methodology that prefers applicants based on race and gender, according to the complaint. Quoting the Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. Harvard ruling in June, which struck down affirmative action, WILL alleges the program similarly “picks winners and losers based on the color of their skin.”

“Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court emphatically declared that race discrimination violates federal law, and that claims of ‘diversity’ can never justify discrimination,” WILL Deputy Counsel Dan Lennington said in a statement. “WILL promises to fight discrimination wherever it rears its head. Our message is simple: if you discriminate against anyone based on race, you will go to court, and we will see to it that you lose.”

The Bexar County Small Business Assistance Program, funded using $10 million from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, is “unconstitutional and illegal under federal law” because of its scoring methodology that put Gomm “at the back of the line,” the lawsuit alleges.

“Based on the principles of equality and justice in law, governments must not be allowed to tip the scales using equity measurements of race, sex and gender,” Gomm, founder of the software company DigitalDesk, Inc., said in a statement. “I hope that this lawsuit brings to light this illegal practice that is occurring in our nation, and hope that more Americans will join the fight.”

Bexar County did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.