WisDOT DBE programs unaffected by federal judge’s ruling

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The state transportation agency’s program for disadvantaged business won’t be affected by a federal judge’s ruling.

That’s according to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation following a judge in the Eastern District of Kentucky’s ruling against the Biden-Harris Administration’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program.

In September, U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove ruled that the program’s race and gender classifications violate the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. The program started in 1983 and requires the U.S. Department of Transportation to use 10% of federal funding for transportation projects for disadvantaged businesses, encompassing contractors owned by women and minority group members.

But the state’s own DBE program will continue, WisDOT officials said.

“We’ve consulted with our legal team about the federal judge’s preliminary injunction issued last month in Kentucky and believe this decision does not impact Wisconsin’s DBE program,” a spokesperson for WisDOT said. “The injunction is only in effect in Kentucky and Indiana, which were specifically involved in the lawsuit. At this time, we are conducting business as usual. We will continue partnering with our DBE firms because we know the DBE program is valuable and has made significant progress in recent years,” they added.

The congressional program was reallowed in 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The IIJA reserved $37 billion for disadvantaged businesses.

Designed to remedy ongoing discrimination and effects of past discrimination on federally assisted highway and transit contracts, the DBE program is available to all businesses and aims to address barriers for minority and women-owned businesses, according to USDOT.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a nonprofit law firm based in Milwaukee, brought the lawsuit before the Eastern District of Kentucky on behalf of Mid-America Milling Company. Rick Eisenberg, president and general counsel of WILL, said the firm had worked on the lawsuit since 2021.

Ugo Nwagbaraocha, president of the Wisconsin Chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors and vice president of NAMC’s national organization, said the ruling is “unfortunate and not reflective of the historic or the current reality.”

Minority business represented 24% of eligible businesses for federal contract awards and made up just 3% of contracts in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.