Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/448-u-s-448-604782450
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 15:46:46+00:00

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Amendment and the equal protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The District Court upheld the validity of the MBE program, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
[100 S.Ct. 2760] MR. CHIEF .JUSTICE BURGER, joined by MR. JUSTICE WHITE and MR. JUSTICE POWELL, concluded that the MBE provision of the 1977 Act, on its face, does not violate the Constitution. Pp. 456-492.
that traditional procurement practices, when applied to minority businesses, could perpetuate the effects of prior discrimination, and that the prospective elimination of such barriers to minority-firm access to public contracting opportunities was appropriate to ensure that those businesses were not denied equal opportunity to participate in federal grants to state and local governments, which is one aspect of the equal protection of the laws. Cf., e.g., Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641; Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112. Pp. 476-478.
(i) In the MBE program's remedial context, there is no requirement that Congress act in a wholly "color-blind" fashion. Cf., e.g., Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education, 402 U.S. 1; McDaniel v. Barresi, 402 U.S. 39; North Carolina Board of Education v. Swann, 402 U.S. 43. Pp. 482-484.
[100 S.Ct. 2761] (ii) The MBE program is not constitutionally defective because it may disappoint the expectations of access to a portion of government contracting opportunities of nonminority firms who may themselves be innocent of any prior discriminatory actions. When effectuating a limited and properly tailored remedy to cure the effects of prior discrimination, such "a sharing of the burden" by innocent parties is not impermissible. Franks v. Bowman Transportation Co., 424 U.S. 747, 777. Pp. 484-485.
(iii) Nor is the MBE program invalid as being underinclusive in that it limits its benefit to specified minority groups, rather than extending its remedial objectives to all businesses whose access to government contracting is impaired by the effects of disadvantage or discrimination. Congress has not sought to give select minority groups a preferred standing in the construction industry, but has embarked on a remedial program to place them on a more equitable footing with respect to public contracting opportunities, and there has been no showing that Congress inadvertently effected an invidious discrimination by excluding from coverage an identifiable minority group that has been the victim of a degree of disadvantage and discrimination equal to or greater than that suffered by the groups encompassed by the MBE program. Pp. 485-486.

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