FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 11, 2025
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New Lawsuit Challenges Big Tech Firm Meta for Discrimination in Advertising Higher Education Opportunities
Lawsuit Alleges Meta Disproportionately Steers Ads for For-Profit Colleges and Universities to Black Facebook and Instagram Users in Violation of the D.C. Human Rights Act
WASHINGTON, DC – Today a nonprofit advocacy organization, represented by a team of civil rights and tech justice lawyers, filed a groundbreaking lawsuit against the tech giant Meta for engaging in modern-day digital redlining by providing separate and unequal services to Black users on its social media platforms Facebook and Instagram.
The lawsuit, filed by the Equal Rights Center (ERC), represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs, and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP, argues that Meta’s advertising system disproportionately steers ads for for-profit colleges and universities to Black people while disproportionately steering ads for public nonprofit colleges and universities to white users. These practices, the suit argues, violate the District of Columbia’s Human Rights Act and its Consumer Protection Procedures Act.
Many for-profit colleges have a documented history of selling students the false promise of upward mobility but instead delivering sub-par education, leading to diminished earning potential and employment opportunities. Research shows that people who attend these schools—especially Black students—are often saddled with high debt and go on to make lower salaries than those who attend nonprofit colleges and universities. From 2017 until March 2019, nearly 24,000 federal fraud complaints were filed against for-profit colleges by students who claimed that the schools either lied about earning potential or employment statistics.
“Separate and unequal services should be remnants of the past, but they are still a present-day reality for Black users on Meta’s platforms,” said Damon T. Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Digital redlining, especially in today’s higher education market, sends the unmistakable signal that Black people belong in some institutions but not others. This lawsuit aims to make it clear that no corporation—not even a Big Tech company as powerful as Meta—should be allowed to profit from the discriminatory treatment of Black students and consumers.
“The Equal Rights Center has a long history of standing up for the rights of people who have been discriminated against in the District, especially when it is hard for individual consumers to recognize that discrimination is happening,” remarks Kate Scott, executive director of the Equal Rights Center. “By bringing this action today, we are able to extend our fight even further to online racial discrimination in public accommodations.”
The lawsuit cites an academic study published last year, in which researchers submitted pairs of ads with one for a for-profit school and the other for a public nonprofit school. The research found that Black Facebook and Instagram users were more likely to get ads for the for-profit colleges, while white Facebook and Instagram users were more likely to get the ads for the public nonprofit schools.
According to the lawsuit, by steering ads for for-profit schools disproportionately to Black users of its social media platforms, Meta reinforces historical barriers to economic stability and mobility for Black students. Meta should use its extensive resources to promote equity and opportunity on its social media platforms–not replicate and reinforce systemic discrimination.
“This lawsuit alleges that Meta’s marketplace reproduces historic racial discrimination and limits college opportunities for Black residents of the District of Columbia. All students–regardless of race or zip code–deserve an equal shot at exploring higher education opportunities that will allow them to thrive,” said Joanne Lin, executive director of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs.
“This lawsuit seeks to stop Meta from using race to deny its Facebook and Instagram users equal access to educational information,” said Sam Shapiro of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, LLP, one of the attorneys representing ERC.
The complaint states:
“Meta also published a report in January 2023 in which it acknowledged that external researchers had identified concerns that Meta’s ad delivery system ‘may nudge ads to certain groups of people even when the advertisers select extremely broad targeting options.’ Meta’s report discussed ‘the potential impact of systemic inequity reflected in automated systems’ and admitted that ‘personalization systems’ (like theirs) ‘could lead to unfair outcomes.’ For instance, ‘if models in such systems over- or under-predict[] the likelihood people from a certain demographic group are interested in a particular type of ads, those models might thus under- or over-deliver those types of ads to different audiences based on those erroneous predictions.’”
This lawsuit marks a significant step in holding Big Tech companies like Meta accountable for their role in maintaining and exacerbating racial and economic inequities.
For the latest updates, visit: act.lawyerscommittee.org/ercvsmeta/
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About the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law: Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to mobilize the nation’s leading lawyers as agents for change in the Civil Rights Movement. Today, the Lawyers’ Committee uses legal advocacy to achieve racial justice, fighting inside and outside the courts to ensure that Black people and other people of color have the voice, opportunity, and power to make the promises of our democracy real. The Lawyers’ Committee implements its mission and objectives by marshaling the pro bono resources of the bar for litigation, public policy, advocacy and other forms of service by lawyers to the cause of civil rights.
About the Equal Rights Center: The ERC is a civil rights organization that identifies and seeks to eliminate unlawful and unfair discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations in its home community of Greater Washington D.C. and nationwide. The ERC’s core strategy for identifying unlawful and unfair discrimination is civil rights testing. When the ERC identifies discrimination, it seeks to eliminate it through the use of testing data to educate the public and business community, support policy advocacy, conduct compliance testing and training, and, if necessary, take enforcement action.
About the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs: Founded in 1968, the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs works to create legal, economic, and social equity through litigation, client and public education and public policy advocacy. While we fight discrimination against all people, we recognize the central role that current and historic race discrimination plays in sustaining inequity and recognize the critical importance of identifying, exposing, combatting, and dismantling the systems that sustain racial oppression. We partner with individuals and communities facing discrimination and with the legal community to achieve justice.
About Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel LLP: ECBAWM is a nationally-recognized litigation boutique that focuses on civil rights, commercial, criminal, and ethics matters. ECBWAM’s civil rights practice includes wrongful convictions, sexual harassment and assault, police and prison misconduct, children’s and disability rights, housing rights, election law, all forms of discrimination, and class actions. ECBAWM’s commercial practice includes complex commercial litigation, partnership disputes, real estate and land use, investigations, ethics and discipline, and appeals.
