Big Corporations Give to NAACP Amid Bias Controversies

Amid criticism of the NAACP’s Los Angeles chapter for its ties to disgraced NBA team owner Donald Sterling, Bloomberg examines other instances where the venerable civil rights group has cooperated with entities accused of racial discrimination.

Executives from Walmart and FedEx will be honored at the May 15 Los Angeles NAACP gala where Mr. Sterling was to have received a now-revoked lifetime-achievement award. The firms, both major NAACP contributors, have faced lawsuits alleging workplace gender and race bias, with FedEx paying $53-million in 2007 to settle a case with its truck drivers.

The NAACP also accepted more than $1-million from Bank of America in 2011, a year in which the company agreed to pay $335-million in connection with a federal suit alleging predatory lending to minorities.

Peter Dreier, head of the urban and environmental policy department at Los Angeles’s Occidental College, said corporations accused of discrimination give to the NAACP to insulate themselves from criticism by the country’s oldest and largest civil-rights group. Lorraine Miller, the NAACP’s interim president and CEO, said donating “does not buy corporations a free pass if their actions run afoul of our mission.”