The Trump administration’s Department of Transportation (DOT) has agreed to terminate a $37 billion program that takes race and gender into consideration when awarding highway and transit project contracts to minority and women-owned businesses, USA Today reports.
The long, ongoing legal battle between DOT and companies Mid-America Milling and Bagshaw Trucking came to an end on May 28 as the agency agreed its Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program (DBE) program is “unconstitutional” for “use of race- and sex-based presumptions,” sharing similar sentiments of Kentucky’s U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove. In September 2024, during the Biden-Harris administration’s reign, Tatenhove claimed funding for businesses geared toward minorities and women violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.
Prior to the Supreme Court’s controversial overturning of affirmative action policies in college admissions, Biden’s DOT supported the initiative, stating the program was a way to smooth over past discriminatory practices.
If the decision is approved by a judge, according to the Washington Post, DBE will be banned from awarding contracts based on race and sex, overshadowing its birth mission. Dan Lennington, deputy counsel at conservative nonprofit Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, who represents the companies, celebrated the notion, saying the program “victimized” thousands of small business owners. “Over the past five decades, the federal government imposed a policy of race discrimination in the road building industry,” Lennington said.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Sharelle B. McNair over at Black Enterprise
