Racial identifies of corporations

["David B. Shemano" <dshemano@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Perelman requests:

>> David, could you tell us more about this case, please?
>>
>> On Fri, May 21, 2004 at 11:39:22AM -0700, David B. Shemano wrote:
>> >
>> > Regarding corporations, everybody should be happy to know that the Ninth Circuit
>> Court of Appeals held this week that a corporation can sue for violations of civil rights
>> protecting against racial discrimination, which necessarily required the Court to hold
>> that a corporation can have a race.    Tinket Ink Information Resources, Inc. v. Sun
>> Microsystems, Inc., 2004 WL 1088296 (9th Cir. 2004).

Here is a link to the case:  http://www.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0504%2F0216754

The issue is very simple.  The plaintiff was a minority-owned corporation (all of the shareholders are African-American).  The plaintiff suppled services to Sun Microsystems, but then Sun stopped using the plaintiff.  The plaintiff alleged that Sun refused to contract with the plaintiff "solely on its status as an African-American owned business."  The issue was whether the plaintiff, a corporation, had standing to sue in its own name for violation of an anti-racial discrimination civil rights law.  The Court concluded that the corporation had standing.  The Court acknowledged as an "anti-anthropomorphic truism as a general proposition" that a corporation does not have a racial identity.  However, based upon prudential grounds, the court said that the corporation had standing to sue.  The court was concerned that because the harm was suffered by the corporation and not the shareholders, nobody would have the right to sue if the court held the corporation could not sue in its!
  own name.

David Shemano