Source: http://www.joeldufresnecase.com/supreme-court-opinions-federal/fifth-amendment-opinions/adarand-constructors-inc-v-pena
Timestamp: 2017-11-18 19:21:49
Document Index: 345173859

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 631', '§ 5', '§ 124', '§ 106', '§ 23', '§ 124', '§ 19', '§ 124', '§ 124', '§ 2']

Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena - Joel Dufresne Case
No. 93-1841 Argued: January 17, 1995 --- Decided:
These fairly straightforward facts implicate a complex scheme of federal statutes and regulations, to which we now turn. The Small Business Act, 72 Stat. 384, as amended, 15 U.S.C. § 631 et seq. (Act), declares it to be
After losing the guardrail subcontract to Gonzales, Adarand filed suit against various federal officials in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado, claiming that the race-based presumptions involved in the use of subcontracting compensation clauses violate Adarand's right to equal protection. The District Court granted the Government's motion for summary judgment. Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Skinner, 790 F.Supp. 240 (1992). The Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit affirmed. 16 F.3d 1537 (1994). It understood our decision in Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448"]448 U.S. 448 (1980), to have adopted "a lenient standard, resembling intermediate scrutiny, in assessing" the constitutionality of federal race-based action. 16 F.3d at 1544. Applying that "lenient standard," as further developed in 448 U.S. 448 (1980), to have adopted "a lenient standard, resembling intermediate scrutiny, in assessing" the constitutionality of federal race-based action. 16 F.3d at 1544. Applying that "lenient standard," as further developed in Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547 (1990), the Court of Appeals upheld the use of subcontractor compensation clauses. 16 F.3d at 1547. We granted certiorari. 512 U.S. ___ (1994).
Lujan, supra, at 565, n. 2. We therefore must ask whether Adarand has made an adequate showing that sometime in the relatively near future it will bid on another government contract that offers financial incentives to a prime contractor for hiring disadvantaged subcontractors.
We conclude that Adarand has satisfied this requirement. Adarand's general manager said in a deposition that his company bids on every guardrail project in Colorado. See Reply Brief for Petitioner 5-A. According to documents produced in discovery, the CFLHD let fourteen prime contracts in Colorado that included guardrail work between 1983 and 1990. Plaintiff's Motion for Summary Judgment in No. 90-C-1413, Exh. I, Attachment A (D. Colo.). Two of those contracts do not present the kind of injury Adarand alleges here. In one, the prime contractor did not subcontract out the guardrail work; in another, the prime contractor was itself a disadvantaged business, and in such cases the contract generally does not include a subcontractor compensation clause. Ibid.; see also id. Supplemental Exhibits, Deposition of Craig Actis 14 (testimony of CFLHD employee that 8(a) contracts do not include subcontractor compensation clauses). Thus, statistics from the years 1983 through 1990 indicate that the CFLHD lets on average one and one half contracts per year that could injure Adarand in the manner it alleges here. Nothing in the record suggests that the CFLHD has altered the frequency with which it lets contracts that include guardrail work. And the record indicates that Adarand often must compete for contracts against companies certified as small disadvantaged businesses. See id. Exh. F, Attachments 1-3. Because the evidence in this case indicates that the CFLHD is likely to let contracts involving guardrail work that contain a subcontractor compensation clause at least once per year in Colorado, that Adarand is very likely to bid on each such contract, and that Adarand often must compete for such contracts against small disadvantaged businesses, we are satisfied that Adarand has standing to bring this lawsuit.
The Government urges that "[t]he Subcontracting Compensation Clause program is . . . a program based on disadvantage, not on race," and thus that it is subject only to "the most relaxed judicial scrutiny." Brief for Respondents 26. To the extent that the statutes and regulations involved in this case are race-neutral, we agree. The Government concedes, however, that "the race-based rebuttable presumption used in some certification determinations under the Subcontracting Compensation Clause" is subject to some heightened level of scrutiny. Id. at 27. The parties disagree as to what that level should be. (We note, incidentally, that this case concerns only classifications based explicitly on race, and presents none of the additional difficulties posed by laws that, although facially race neutral, result in racially disproportionate impact and are motivated by a racially discriminatory purpose. See generally Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp., 429 U.S. 252"]429 U.S. 252 (1977); 429 U.S. 252 (1977); Washington v. Davis, 426 U.S. 229 (1976).)
Bolling's facts concerned school desegregation, but its reasoning was not so limited. The Court's observations that "[d]istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are, by their very nature, odious," Hirabayashi, 320 U.S. at 100, and that "all legal restrictions which curtail the civil rights of a single racial group are immediately suspect," Korematsu, 323 U.S. at 216, carry no less force in the context of federal action than in the context of action by the States -- indeed, they first appeared in cases concerning action by the Federal Government. Bolling relied on those observations, 347 U.S. at 499, n. 3, and reiterated
The Court's failure to produce a majority opinion in Bakke, Fullilove, and Wygant left unresolved the proper analysis for remedial race-based governmental action. See United States v. Paradise, 480 U.S. at 166 (plurality opinion of Brennan, J.) ("[A]lthough this Court has consistently held that some elevated level of scrutiny is required when a racial or ethnic distinction is made for remedial purposes, it has yet to reach consensus on the appropriate constitutional analysis"); Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, 478 U.S. 421, 480 (1986) (plurality opinion of Brennan, J.). Lower courts found this lack of guidance unsettling. See, e.g., Kromnick v. School Dist. of Philadelphia, 739 F.2d 894, 901 (CA3 1984) ("The absence of an Opinion of the Court in either Bakke or Fullilove and the concomitant failure of the Court to articulate an analytic framework supporting the judgments makes the position of the lower federal courts considering the constitutionality of affirmative action programs somewhat vulnerable"), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1107 (1985); Williams v. New Orleans, 729 F.2d 1554, 1567 (CA5 1984) (en banc) (Higginbotham, J., concurring specially); South Florida Chapter of Associated General Contractors of America, Inc. v. Metropolitan Dade County, Fla., 723 F.2d 846, 851 (CA11), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 871 (1984).
The Court resolved the issue at least in part, in 1989. Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989), concerned a city's determination that 30% of its contracting work should go to minority-owned businesses. A majority of the Court in Croson held that
With Croson, the Court finally agreed that the Fourteenth Amendment requires strict scrutiny of all race-based action by state and local governments. But Croson of course had no occasion to declare what standard of review the Fifth Amendment requires for such action taken by the Federal Government. Croson observed simply that the Court's "treatment of an exercise of congressional power in Fullilove cannot be dispositive here," because Croson's facts did not implicate Congress' broad power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Croson, 488 U.S. at 491 (plurality opinion); see also id. at 522 (SCALIA, J., concurring in judgment) ("[W]ithout revisiting what we held in Fullilove . . . , I do not believe our decision in that case controls the one before us here"). On the other hand, the Court subsequently indicated that Croson had at least some bearing on federal race-based action when it vacated a decision upholding such action and remanded for further consideration in light of Croson. H. K. Porter Co. v. Metropolitan Dade County, 489 U.S. 1062 (1989); see also Shurberg Broadcasting of Hartford, Inc. v. FCC, 876 F.2d 902, 915, n. 16 (CADC 1989) (opinion of Silberman, J.) (noting the Court's action in H. K. Porter Co.), rev'd sub nom. Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC, 497 U.S. 547 (1990). Thus, some uncertainty persisted with respect to the standard of review for federal racial classifications. See, e.g., Mann v. City of Albany, Ga., 883 F.2d 999, 1006 (CA11 1989) (Croson "may be applicable to race-based classifications imposed by Congress"); Shurberg, supra, at 910 (noting the difficulty of extracting general principles from the Court's fractured opinions); id. at 959 (Wald, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc) ("Croson certainly did not resolve the substantial questions posed by congressional programs which mandate the use of racial preferences"); Winter Park Communications, Inc. v. FCC, 873 F.2d 347, 366 (CADC 1989) (Williams, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) ("The unresolved ambiguity of Fullilove and Croson leaves it impossible to reach a firm opinion as to the evidence of discrimination needed to sustain a congressional mandate of racial preferences"), aff'd sub nom. Metro Broadcasting, supra.
Moreover, unresolved questions remain concerning the details of the complex regulatory regimes implicated by the use of subcontractor compensation clauses. For example, the SBA's 8(a) program requires an individualized inquiry into the economic disadvantage of every participant, see 13 CFR § 124.106(a) (1994), whereas the DOT's regulations implementing STURAA § 106(c) do not require certifying authorities to make such individualized inquiries, see 49 CFR § 23.62 (1994); 49 CFR pt. 23, subpt. D, App. C (1994). And the regulations seem unclear as to whether 8(d) subcontractors must make individualized showings, or instead whether the race-based presumption applies both to social and economic disadvantage, compare 13 CFR § 124.106(b) (apparently requiring 8(d) participants to make an individualized showing), with 48 CFR § 19.703(a)(2) (1994) (apparently allowing 8(d) subcontractors to invoke the race-based presumption for social and economic disadvantage). See generally ___Part I, supra. We also note an apparent discrepancy between the definitions of which socially disadvantaged individuals qualify as economically disadvantaged for the 8(a) and 8(d) programs; the former requires a showing that such individuals' ability to compete has been impaired "as compared to others in the same or similar line of business who are not socially disadvantaged," 13 CFR § 124.106(a)(1)(i) (1994) (emphasis added), while the latter requires that showing only "as compared to others in the same or similar line of business," § 124.106(b)(1). The question whether any of the ways in which the Government uses subcontractor compensation clauses can survive strict scrutiny, and any relevance distinctions such as these may have to that question, should be addressed in the first instance by the lower courts.
* Justices Roberts, Murphy, and Jackson filed vigorous dissents; Justice Murphy argued that the challenged order "falls into the ugly abyss of racism." Korematsu, 323 U.S. at 233. Congress has recently agreed with the dissenters' position, and has attempted to make amends. See Pub.L. 100-383, § 2(a), 102 Stat. 903 ("The Congress recognizes that . . . a grave injustice was done to both citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry by the evacuation, relocation, and internment of civilians during World War II").