Amazon Faces Suit Over $10k Offer Made Exclusively to ‘Black, Latinx, and Native American Entrepreneurs’

A white woman is suing e-commerce giant Amazon over a program that gives "Black, Latinx, and Native American entrepreneurs" a $10,000 stipend to launch their own delivery startups, an offer the lawsuit calls "patently unlawful racial discrimination."

The online retailer delivers packages by contracting with local "delivery service partners"—outside businesses that drive parcels from point A to point B. To "help reduce the barriers to entry for Black, Latinx, and Native American entrepreneurs," Amazon’s website states, the company has created a "diversity grant" that offers minorities $10,000 to launch their own businesses and become delivery service partners.

"This means that businesses owned by blacks, Latinos, or Native Americans receive a $10,000 stipend from Amazon to become delivery service partners, while whites and Asian Americans who wish to become delivery service partners receive no such stipend and must foot the entire bill for their startup costs," the lawsuit says.