A small-business owner has sued Massachusetts for denying him access to relief funds because of his sexual orientation, race, and sex. Brian Dalton owns a firearms training business that was “shuttered” by COVID lockdown orders, resulting in financial hardship according to the lawsuit.
Because of Dalton’s status as “a white, heterosexual male,” he was ineligible for relief under the state’s Inclusive Recovery Grant Program, which targeted businesses serving or owned by “socially and economically disadvantaged and historically underrepresented groups.” Eligible businesses could receive grants of $10,000 to $75,000 from a $75 million fund.
The language of the Inclusive Recovery Grant Program expressly limits eligibility in a manner denying Dalton a “fair opportunity at recovery because of his race, sex, and sexual orientation”:
Business must meet at least one of the following criteria:
– Minority-owned- Woman-owned- Veteran-owned- Immigrant-owned- First-Generation Immigrant-owned- Disability-owned- LGBTQ+-owned- Focus on reaching markets predominantly made up of socially and economically disadvantaged and historically underrepresented groups or underserved markets (emphasis original)
Dalton seeks certification as a class action “to represent a class of small businesses and small business owners, which would have been eligible to apply for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Inclusive Recovery Grant Program if the businesses were minority-owned, female-owned, or LGBTQ-owned.”
The complaint asserts one claim for relief: violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Dalton alleges “[s]tate actors and their agents, under the color of state law, enforce the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Inclusive Recovery Grant Program” contrary to the Equal Protection Clause, which “provides that no state shall ‘deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'”
Andrew Quinio, one of Dalton’s attorneys at the Pacific Legal Foundation, spoke to Legal Insurrection about the lawsuit. Quinio distinguished race preferences in the relief program from those in higher education, where the government can consider race as a factor.
“Consideration of race in government grants can only be done to remedy past discrimination perpetuated by the government. . . . [T]his program doesn’t target individuals that have struggled to access needed capital due to actions by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
The complaint names as defendants the Massachusetts Growth Capital Corporation, which administered the program, and Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’s Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development Yvonne Hao and MGCC President and CEO Lawrence Andrews, both in their official capacities because of the authority they exercise over MGCC.
Dalton seeks a declaration of the program’s unconstitutionality as a denial of equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment, a permanent injunction barring the defendants from implementing the program’s “preferences for minority-owned, women-owned, and LGBTQ+-owned businesses,” attorney fees and costs, and nominal damages of $1.00.
Dalton’s complaint:
Inclusive Recovery Grant Program overview:
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