Recent posts have discussed a registration statement filed Bally's Chicago, Inc. for an offering that would impose a stockholder qualification based on race, gender and ethnic status. This qualification requirement is intended to satisfy the requirements of a Host Community Agreement entered into with the City of Chicago. The agreement defines “minority” pursuant to Section 2-92-670(n) of the Municipal Code of Chicago which, among other things, defines "minority" as including African Americans, American Indians, Asian Americans, and Hispanics. The MCC then adds:

individual members of other groups, including but not limited to Arab-Americans, found by the City of Chicago to be socially disadvantaged by having suffered racial or ethnic prejudice or cultural bias within American society, without regard to individual qualities, resulting in decreased opportunities to compete in Chicago area markets or to do business with the City of Chicago

What the authors of the Host Community Agreement apparently missed is that the effect of the Host Community Agreement is to bring everyone else within the definition of a "minority" because the allocation share ownership opportunities to specific racial and ethnic groups disadvantages others "without regard to individual qualities".

Even more invidiously, the explicit inclusion of Arab-Americans while omitting Jewish Americans is manifestly anti-Semitic in effect, if not intent.