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Earlier this year, in the response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Oregon Legislature established a $62 million relief fund that’s only available to individuals and business owners who “self-identify as Black.†These public funds are not available to Hispanic, Asian-American, Native American, or White business owners or individuals.This blatant racially discriminatory scheme cried out to be challenged as unconstitutional. Sure enough, it is now being challenged.The plaintiff is Great Northern Resources, Inc., a small family-owned logging business that has suffered financially because of the pandemic. Its owner is white, and thus the business is ineligible to receive any of the public funds granted by the Oregon Legislature.In its suit, Great Northern Resources asserts that by distributing government benefits on the basis of race, Oregon has violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. To me, this seems self evident.