Rap superstar Jay-Z is suing to stop the American Arbitration Association from judging a trademark case, saying the panel is not diverse enough to be fair.
The rapper, whose real name is Shawn Carter, filed the case against the clothing company Iconix to delay an impending arbitration over trademark infringement claims related to his line of Roc Nation baseball caps. When he went to review members of the AAA, “he was confronted with a stark reality: he could not identify a single African-American arbitrator on the ‘Large and Complex Cases’ roster, composed of hundreds of arbitrators, that had the background and experience to preside over the arbitration,” the suit says.
Jay-Z argued that minority business owners should be able to select from a group that “reflects the diverse population.”