Roger Clegg on ‘Minority’ Contracting
I like following the Center for Equal Opportunity’s Roger Clegg around the web. A recent comment lands on a Dallas News blog post titled, “Gap Rap: The future of minority contracting.”
The blogger mentions “pressure” on investors and contractors that do business with the government to give business to black- and Hispanic-owned companies in Dallas. He believes this practice may discourage outside investors because of red tape (brown tape?) that involves jumping through race-based hoops.
An excerpt: “So here’s my question: Do minimum minority-participation requirements wind up hurting investment and dampening development in southern Dallas? Or do they serve a useful purpose?”
Instead of answering the blogger’s question, Clegg asks and answers a common sense question of his own (emphasis added):
“Why do race, ethnicity, and sex need to be considered at all in deciding who gets awarded a contract? It’s fine to make sure contracting programs are open to all, that bidding opportunities are widely publicized beforehand, and that no one gets discriminated against because of skin color, national origin, or sex. But that means no preferences because of skin color, etc. either–whether it’s labeled a ’set-aside,’ a ‘quota,’ or a ‘goal,’ since they all end up amounting to the same thing. Such discrimination is unfair and divisive; it costs the taxpayers money to award a contract to someone other than the lowest bidder; and it’s generally illegal to boot (see 42 U.S.C. section 1981 and comments we submitted to the Colorado DOT here: http://www.ceousa.org/content/view/655/86/ ).”
