Judge dismisses DBE lawsuit after DOT rule change

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A federal judge overseeing an Indiana contractor’s case against the U.S. Department of Transportation said its argument was no longer in dispute after the department changed its framework around minority contracting. The U.S. DOT’s interim final rule last fall, catalyzed by the Kentucky case, halted Disadvantaged Business Enterprise programs in all states including Wisconsin.

In 2023, Indiana-based Mid-America Milling Co. challenged U.S. DOT’s more than 40-year-old Disadvantaged Business Program and argued the program’s classifications for race and gender were unconstitutional. Following the case was a preliminary injunction in 2024 and an interim final rule in 2025 under the President Donald Trump administration that halted minority contracting goals for federally assisted highway and airport projects.

The DBE Program ensures small businesses owned by socially or economically disadvantaged people, including women and minority groups, have access to federally assisted contracts for highway, transit and airport projects. Congress set a goal for 10% of allocations through federally assisted projects to be spent on businesses owned by socially and economically disadvantaged people.

District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, a jurist in the Eastern District of Kentucky, dismissed Mid-America Milling as moot in their case against U.S. DOT., because the department’s ruling made changes to the DBE Program that Mid-America Milling sought, according to an opinion.

“To summarize, the issuance of the Oct. 3, 2025, (interim final rule) moots the present dispute, because the regulatory change provided precisely the relief sought by the Plaintiffs in their complaint – elimination of the race- and sex-based presumptions under the Transportation Department’s DBE Program,” Tatenhove wrote.

The judge also granted a motion by a group of intervening organizations representing women- and minority-owned contractors to dismiss and vacate the case and dissolved a preliminary injunction that restricted U.S. DOT from applying DBE contract goals on contracts the Mid-America Milling was interested in.

The effects of the interim final rule have been felt by both contractors and transportations across the U.S. who were left to piece together recertification programs and certify again.

Not all construction company owners saw the program’s pause as a bad thing, with some owners citing labor shortages and competition with other minority-owned businesses as challenges with the program. The program allowed some subcontractors to showcase their abilities with contractors they might have not had a chance to work with previously.

In February, the Wisconsin Department of Transportation announced plans to roll out the recertification process for DBE businesses. WisDOT will no longer assign DBE goals to future contracts until the recertification process is completed; there were nearly 1,300 DBE businesses counted in the state in October 2025.

Mid-America Milling’s dismissal does not resolve broader policy questions surrounding the DBE Program after the interim final rule, according to Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt PC in a post on JD Supra.

“The IFR itself may be challenged in separate litigation. The intervenor DBEs may well pursue separate challenges to the IFR. Congress has not repealed or amended the statutory authorizations underlying the DBE Program. And the recertification process required by the IFR is still ongoing in many states, creating practical uncertainty for DBE-certified businesses and state transportation agencies administering the program,” it added.

Mid-America Milling was represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a nonprofit organization based in Milwaukee.

In March, WILL announced a Title VI civil rights complaint with U.S. DOT alleging transportation departments in New York, Massachusetts, Maryland and Indiana ignored the interim final rule.

In late March, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies and departments to include a clause restricting contractors and subcontractors from engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion practices or else risk cancellation.