McDonald's Ordered to Face $10B Racial Discrimination Lawsuit Filed by Byron Allen

An unprecedented lawsuit against McDonald's is moving forward. Media entrepreneur Byron Allen, who owns the likes of theGrio and the former Black News Network, filed a historic $10 billion lawsuit against the fast food corporation accusing them of not advertising with Black-owned media. Now, Yahoo News reports that a judge has ordered McDonald's to defend their reasoning. U.S. District Judge Fernando Olguin in LA said Allen could try to prove that McDonald's is in violation of federal and California civil rights laws. He says McDonald's deemed his networks ineligible for the "vast majority" of its advertising dollars.

Allen alleges that McDonald's has deprived his Entertainment Studios Networks Inc and Weather Group LLC, which owns the Weather Channel, of tens of millions of dollars of annual revenue without advertising. His companies have tried since 2009 unsuccessfully to obtain a contract from McDonald's for advertising. Allen says the decision on McDonald's part was racist. Olguin believes there's enough evidence for Allen's case to move forward. 

"Taken together, and construed in the light most favorable to plaintiffs, plaintiffs have alleged sufficient facts to support an inference of intentional discrimination," Olguin wrote in his decision to allow the case to move forward.

McDonald's lawyer Loretta Lynch maintained that the Chicago-based company believes the case is "about revenue, not race." They believed the evidence wouldn't prove any discrimination.

"Plaintiffs' groundless allegations ignore both McDonald's legitimate business reasons for not investing more on their channels and the company's long-standing business relationships with many other diverse-owned partners," Lynch said.

Allen believes the case is "about economic inclusion of African American-owned businesses in the U.S. economy. McDonald's takes billions from African American consumers and gives almost nothing back." In his lawsuit, Allen notes that Black Americans represent 40% of fast food customers, but that McDonald's spent just 0.3% of its $1.6 billion U.S. ad budget in 2019 on Black-owned media.

In May 2021, McDonald's pledged to boost national ad spending with Black-owned media to 5% from 2% within three years. An earlier version of Allen's lawsuit was initially dismissed.