On April 6 the Conference of Presidents of Major Italian American Organizations (COPOMIAO) filed a lawsuit in U.S. Federal District Court against Mayor Jim Kenney and the city of Philadelphia for multiple acts of intentional discrimination against the Italian American community. The most unsettling of which was Mayor Kenney’s unilateral Executive Order issued this past January that changed Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day in Philadelphia.
 
The mayor’s pattern of anti-Italian American acts is a violation of federal law, which allows us to request a finding that would designate the Italian American community as a protected class under the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution.