Hello Alice named in lawsuit claiming grant program racially discriminates against non-Black business owners

Online small business resource company Hello Alice is the subject of a class-action lawsuit claiming its work with Progressive Insurance Company, which offered $25,000 in grants to 10 Black-owned small businesses earlier this year, unlawfully discriminates against business owners based on race.

The complaint is part of a wider campaign by conservative organizations to push back against the recent arc toward diversity and equity measures in corporate decision making, and could wind up as a test case on this lightning-rod topic.

The lawsuit was filed in August in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio Eastern Division by America First Legal, Mitchell Law PLLC and Ashbrook Byrne Kresge LLC.

It accuses Progressive Insurance’s Driving Small Business Forward fund program of unlawful discrimination because non-Black owned small businesses were not allowed to apply.

The lawsuit lists Ohio resident Nathan Roberts, who owns Ohio-based trucking dispatch company Freedom Truck Dispatch, as the plaintiff and Progressive Preferred Insurance Company, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Circular Board Inc. — the company that operates Hello Alice — as defendants.

Roberts, who is white and holds a commercial policy from Progressive, received an email from the company offering 10 grants of $25,000 each to Black-owned small business owners to be put toward purchasing a commercial vehicle , according to the complaint.

The program was a partnership between Progressive and Hello Alice.

Roberts “did not realize the grant was available only for Black-owned small businesses” and began filling out the application until he reached the part that emphasized the grants were for Black-owned businesses.

Hello Alice co-founder Elizabeth Gore sent a statement Wednesday on behalf of herself and executives Carolyn Rodz and Kelsey Rudger defending its efforts to help small minority-owned businesses.

“The activists at AFL (America First Legal) are using their lawsuit against Hello Alice to support their efforts to fundraise,” the statement said. “Our values are not ‘gentle-sounding euphemisms.’ These are the pillars upon which we built Hello Alice and guide our mission to drive capital, connections, and opportunities into the hands of small businesses of all types and backgrounds.”

Gore, originally from Texas, is married to Sonoma County Supervisor James Gore. The couple lives in Healdsburg. She and Rodz started their online platform Hello Alice in 2017. The idea behind it was to give small business owners better access and a better idea of available resources — such as funding, networks and grant opportunities.

America First Legal vice president and general counsel Gene Hamilton said in a statement on the America First Legal’s website that the grant program is “offensive to the American ideal.”

“All Americans deserve to be free from racial discrimination, yet major corporations across the United States inject racial considerations into every aspect of their business operations, employment practices and so much more.” he said in the statement. “We will fight to vindicate his rights and the rights of all similarly situated Americans.”

The America First Legal Foundation is aligned against “an unholy alliance of corrupt special interests, Big Tech titans, the fake news media, and liberal Washington politicians,” according to the group’s website.

“With your support, we will oppose the radical left’s anti-jobs, anti-freedom, anti-faith, anti-borders, anti-police, and anti-American crusade,” the webpage continues.

America First Legal’s president is Stephen Miller, widely considered the architect of Donald J. Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants when Miller served as senior advisor during Trump’s presidency. The foundation reported contributions and grants of nearly $6.8 million in 2021, the most recent year for which a Form 990 tax filing is publicly available.

In the past few months, America First Legal has sued the North Face apparel company, alleging one its sponsored athletes falsely accused a competitor of making a racist comment; sued Salesforce Inc. over the company’s racial equity-focused hiring practices; and served the Target Corporation with a formal demand to open its books regarding its “radical LGBT political agenda,” among many other legal actions.

The foundation’s board in 2021 was all white, and all male.

Also representing the plaintiffs is Jonathan F. Mitchell. He’s the creator of Senate Bill 8, a near-total ban on abortion in Texas, and the legal strategist behind similar efforts in other states. Mitchell has also worked to roll back same-sex marriage rights, gut the Affordable Care Act, and ban books dealing with race and LGBTQ issues.

Reporter Phil Barber contributed to this report.

Correction: The class-action lawsuit misstated the company that operates Hello Alice. It’s Circular Board Inc. not “Circular Board LLC.” The article has been updated.