Correction: A previous version of this article described America First Legal’s civil rights complaint as a lawsuit. The story has since been updated.
America First Legal Foundation (AFL), a conservative nonprofit, filed a federal civil rights complaint Tuesday against investment management giant BlackRock for allegedly racist hiring policies.
BlackRock’s summer internship and scholarship program “is designed for undergraduate or master’s students who self-identify as Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Native American, LGBTQ+ or disabled,” according to the firm’s website. The program, called BlackRock Founder’s Scholarship, allegedly discriminates against people who are not members of these specific groups, a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to AFL’s complaint.
BlackRock has also committed to “increasing overall representation of Black and Latinx employees by 30% [and] to doubling the number of Black and Latinx senior leaders in the U.S,” according to its website.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 04: Hundreds of members of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) march to the Manhattan headquarters of BlackRock, the largest shareholder in the mining company Warrior Met Coal on November 04, 2021 in New York City. The miners and their supporters held a rally outside of BlackRock in support of over 1,100 UMWA members have been on strike for seven months at Warrior Met Coal over demands for better pay and benefits. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
AFL characterizes this as “racially balancing” and says it is “patently illegal,” whether BlackRock established the policies with positive intentions or not, according to AFL’s complaint. (RELATED: American Shareholders Of TikTok Parent Silent On National Security, China Concerns)
“If BlackRock is not engaged in such conduct, but merely pretending to do so, then it is cynically and intentionally misleading consumers, workers, investors, and its ESG ‘stakeholders,'” the complaint reads.
AFL submitted the complaint to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and requested an investigation into the firm’s hiring practices.
AFL also sent a letter to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink demanding the company cease discriminatory hiring practices Tuesday.
“BlackRock’s hiring and promotion decisions are driven entirely by merit. We hire over a thousand graduates and interns each year representing hundreds of universities, ” a spokesperson from BlackRock told the DCNF. “The Founders Scholarship is just one of several channels we offer to access the outstanding talent the firm needs to meet the evolving demands of our clients.”
The spokesperson also noted some additional BlackRock talent programs including one for veterans and military, one for rising sophomores from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and one for women.
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