(TheLibertyRevolution.com)-White and Asian applicants are not accepted for a prestigious fellowship offered by the pharmaceutical behemoth Pfizer. Civil rights attorneys call the “Bold Move,” trumpeted on the company website as an effort to “create a workplace for all” differently. They see it as a flagrant break of the law.
One of the best civil rights lawyers in the nation, Adam Mortara, questioned how the Pfizer program managed to pass internal review by its general counsel, given how blatantly unconstitutional it is.
With its “Breakthrough Fellowship,” Pfizer provides college students with a master’s degree that is fully paid and several years of work. The fellowship standards specify that it only accepts applications from “Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, and Native American” students.
Pfizer claims to be an “equal opportunity employer” in a booklet with frequently asked questions regarding the nine-year initiative.
The fellowship violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which forbids racial discrimination in employment, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which prohibits racial discrimination in contracting, according to Gail Heriot, a member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego, stated that “major corporations seem to have forgotten that there is such a thing as law.” They appear to believe that they are impervious to harm as long as they are woke.
That point of view is dubious. Some businesses have abandoned racial consciousness initiatives after successful discrimination lawsuits. The prospect of legal action benefits: The American Civil Rights Project demanded Coca-Cola withdraw its mandate that legal firms dealing with the company must staff at least 30% of their teams with “diverse lawyers.” Coca-Cola said in February it was abandoning the strategy.
The Breakthrough Fellowship was “clearly illegal,” according to David Bernstein of the George Mason University School of Legislation. It was a “very facial violation” of Title VII, according to American Civil Rights Project executive director Dan Morenoff.
Pfizer’s Breakthrough Fellowship program has a diversity split of 40% Black/African American, 40% Latinx/Hispanic, and 20% two or more races.
