The Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program encouraged contracting with minority- and women-owned businesses in the transportation sector, where these groups are vastly underrepresented.
The Trump administration wants to end a U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) program that supports minority- and women-owned businesses, one of the nation’s oldest and largest affirmative action initiatives.
According to reporting by Julian Mark in The Washington Post, “In a motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, the Justice Department said that a Transportation Department program that has carved out an estimated $37 billion for minority- and women-owned businesses violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution.”
If a judge agrees with the DOJ, it could spell the end of the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program (DBE), which was created by Congress in 1983 and allocates at least 10 percent of transportation funds to contracts with women- or minority-owned businesses. “The settlement is still subject to challenge by a coalition of businesses that intervened in the case after President Donald Trump took office, arguing that the program is essential to removing entrenched barriers that minorities and women face in the $759 billion contracting sector.”
FULL STORY: Trump administration moves to upend $37B affirmative action program
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