Contingent on city council approval, Phoenix will change its 17-year-old Minority, Women, and Small Business Enterprise Program, to remove race and sex from the city contract equation. Kudos to Phoenix.
Instead, the city will set aside up to 10 percent of government contracts for small businesses, regardless of owners’ race or sex. (Source)
What prompted the change? “City officials say the change is necessary because the program is no longer needed and it’s vulnerable to legal challenges.”
Ah, legal challenges are troublesome, aren’t they? Local and state governments are slowly seeing the light. Whatever the rationale for such programs decades ago, they were discriminatory then, and they are discriminatory now. I wonder if Ricci v. DeStefano had any influence over the council’s decision.
One can imagine that it’s tougher for any smaller business to compete for city contracts. The race- and sex-neutral standard will help all small businesses. The story cites the successes of minority- and female-owned businesses in Phoenix. If most of those competed with the larger pool, without preferential treatment, the successes are even better.
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