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Viewpoint and Race Discrimination Claim in COVID Relief Grants Can Go Forward
['Eugene Volokh', 'Charles Oliver', 'Matthew Petti', "Meagan O'Rourke", 'Elizabeth Nolan Brown']
Reason.com
The Pinellas County Board of Commissioners initially approved APEDF's first grant request but later revoked that approval; the Board denied the group's second grant application outright.
And the court also allowed APEDF's Equal Protection Clause race discrimination claim to go forward:We begin with the question whether APEDF, as an inanimate corporation, can assert a claim for race discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause.
First, it appears that the County took "procedural and substantive departures from the norms [it] generally followed" when revoking and denying APEDF's funding requests.
So too with respect to APEDF's second grant application: It (too) was ranked highly—this time fourth out of 78 applications.
Finally, APEDF has plausibly alleged that the County sought to establish a pretext for its discriminatory conduct.