{"id":393042,"date":"2026-07-31T04:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T04:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/393042\/"},"modified":"2026-07-31T04:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T04:49:14","slug":"us-federal-judge-strikes-down-houstons-race-based-contracting-program-jurist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/393042\/","title":{"rendered":"US federal judge strikes down Houston’s race-based contracting program – JURIST"},"content":{"rendered":"

A US federal judge on Tuesday ruled<\/a> that a Houston, Texas, city program establishing racial goals for public contracts violates the Constitution\u2019s Equal Protection Clause, striking down the policy in one of the first rulings to extend a Supreme Court landmark 2023 affirmative action holding<\/a> beyond the context of college admissions.<\/p>\n

Houston\u2019s Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Program (MWSBE<\/a>) is a municipal contracting initiative created in 1984. The program sets quantified goals for the share of city contracts awarded to minority-owned, women-owned, and small businesses. A white couple who own two landscaping companies filed a lawsuit<\/a> against the city in 2023, alleging that their businesses could not \u201ccompete on an equal footing\u201d in light of the MWSBE program.<\/p>\n

The US District Court for the Southern District of Texas held<\/a> that under the Supreme Court\u2019s 2023 precedent in SFFA v. Harvard<\/a>, a government\u2019s race-conscious policy can only be upheld following evidence that demonstrates the government has considered race in order to remedy a specific, past discrimination its related practices. The opinion states:<\/p>\n

Because Houston has failed to comply with the Supreme Court\u2019s framework in Harvard by failing to identify any specific instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute, and because Houston has not proven that the racial classifications in its public contracting programs satisfy the demanding requirements of strict scrutiny<\/a> generally, the Court finds that Plaintiffs have shown actual success on the merits with respect to Plaintiffs\u2019 Equal Protection<\/a> claim against Houston\u2019s Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Program<\/p>\n

The court rejected the city\u2019s argument that the 2023 Harvard ruling only applied to higher education, pointing to the Supreme Court\u2019s April holding in Louisiana v. Callais<\/a>, reasoning that the Supreme Court had further applied the Harvard logic towards interpretation of the Voting Rights Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tuesday\u2019s ruling permanently blocks the race-based components of the MWSBE program. However, Houston may continue directing contracts towards small businesses and women-owned businesses. In a statement<\/a>, Houston City Attorney Arturo Michel said the city will comply with the court\u2019s ruling regarding existing and recently awarded contracts through the pendency of any potential appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A US federal judge on Tuesday ruled that a Houston, Texas, city program establishing racial goals for public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":393043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-393042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=393042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/393042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/393043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=393042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=393042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=393042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}