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Houston City Hall, photographed in April 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sharon Steinmann\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
A federal judge has ruled Houston\u2019s minority-owned business contracting program<\/a> unconstitutional and blocked the city from \u201cusing racial preferences\u201d in awarding public contracts as affirmative action programs come under fire nationwide<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n A white couple from Spring sued the city in 2023<\/a>, alleging their lawn care business, Landscape Consultants of Texas, Inc., could not \u201ccompete on an equal footing with other businesses\u201d as they were ineligible for certification<\/a> in the city\u2019s longstanding program designed to even the playing field for minorities, women and small businesses.<\/p>\n READ MORE: \u00a0Houston officials question accuracy of disparity study meant to protect its minority business program<\/a><\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Houston since 1984 has set goals to give certain percentages of various types of city contracts to certified small businesses and those owned by women and minorities.<\/p>\n The city\u2019s Office of Business Opportunity also runs programs to help businesses owned by veterans, those with disabilities and members of the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n In a Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge David Hittner said the program was in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Houston awarded $2.5 billion in construction, professional services, and other goods and services contracts in its 2025 fiscal year, $579 million of which went to certified minority, women, and small businesses<\/a> across more than 1,600 separate contracts.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Hispanic-owned businesses received 34% of that $579 million in contracts, followed by Asian-owned businesses 22%, firms owned by white women at 17% and Black-owned firms at 14%.<\/p>\n Carol Guess, current chair of the Texas Association of African-American Chambers of Commerce and former president of the Greater Houston Black Chamber of Commerce, said it appeared as though the judge had unjustly applied a narrow ruling the U.S. Supreme Court made in relation to racial preference in college applications to a local program.<\/p>\n Guess called the ruling a \u201chuge blow\u201d to Black-owned businesses across the state, especially those in Houston where city leaders weren\u2019t yet meeting contracting goals. She worried about the possibility of other municipalities complying with the ruling and walking back their MWBE programs to avoid costly court battles.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis court has opened the door for other courts to expand the application of (the Harvard ruling),\u201d Guess said. \u201cThey made a choice to do that. And now the door is open for many other municipalities, for their MWBE programs to be enjoined.\u201d<\/p>\n Representatives with Mayor John Whitmire\u2019s office, the city legal department and the Office of Business Opportunity did not immediately return requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “This ruling vindicates our color-blind Constitution and reaffirms that public contracts should be awarded based on merit, not race,” said Joshua Thompson, an attorney with the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented Landscape Consultants of Texas.<\/p>\n The couple also has a similar lawsuit pending against Harris County\u2019s minority business program<\/a>.<\/p>\n A surge of litigation following the Supreme Court\u2019s 2023 decision to neuter affirmative<\/a> action in college admissions has prompted additional lawsuits\u00a0threatening programs intended to address historic inequities in government contracting across the state<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Questions about contracting disparities<\/p>\n The federal court had given the city a deadline last year to adopt a disparity study with data supporting the need for the program.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The city had not accepted such a study since 2006, having discarded a 2016 report<\/a> as inadequate.<\/p>\n Council members, business owners and advocates also found fault with the 2023 study the council ultimately adopted last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n