US judge blocks Houston's minority contracting program

A federal judge has blocked the city of Houston, Texas, from enforcing race-conscious policies governing a program that sets aside certain public contracts for minority-owned businesses, ruling them unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner stated that his decision was the first to apply the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling against affirmative action in higher education to municipal public contracting programs. He found that Houston's policies, which set annual numerical goals for awarding contracts to minority-owned businesses, could no longer operate as structured.

The judge, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, determined that under the Supreme Court's precedent, the city's policies could only be sustained if evidence was presented to show they were necessary to remedy specific, past discrimination in contracting practices. The city failed to provide such evidence.

The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by two landscaping companies owned by a white married couple, Jerry and Theresa Thompson, who are represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation. They argued that the city's policies violated their equal protection rights under the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment by excluding them from contracts based on their race.

Judge Hittner agreed, stating that the Supreme Court's decision made it clear that the government may only treat people differently based on race to remedy specific instances of past unlawful discrimination, which Houston had not demonstrated. The judge noted that the Supreme Court had recently extended this framework to evaluate racial gerrymandering in a Voting Rights Act case.