thughes
.44 mag
A court ruling is forcing small businesses to detail bias to keep special contracting status
Small business owners who qualified for a government contracting program because of their presumed disadvantage as a member of certain racial or ethnic groups are now being required to describe precisely how they’ve been discriminated against to continue receiving contract awards under the program.Without a narrative, Wong said businesses in the program won’t be able to get new contracts, and even with a narrative, there’s still a possibility that SBA could disapprove it and businesses could lose their 8(a) certification.
The July ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee struck down the program’s use of what’s known as a “rebuttable presumption” that certain racial and ethnic groups — including Black, Hispanic, and Asian Pacific Americans — have been subject to prejudice and are therefore socially disadvantaged.
That presumption made it easier for businesses owned by people belonging to one of those groups to qualify for the program’s social disadvantage requirement. The court, however, said the presumption ran afoul of the constitutional right to equal protection. The opinion cited the Supreme Court’s ruling, just three weeks prior, that colleges can’t use race as a factor in admissions through affirmative action.
And the crying begins: “The thing about these narratives is that they require a person to go into extensive detail about something that happened to them that they very well may want to forget,” said Matthew Moriarty, a federal contracting attorney and founding member of a law firm who has helped clients with narratives.
Waaaaa.....my feels!
A court ruling is forcing small businesses to detail bias to keep special contracting status
Lawyers and contracting experts urged small businesses proving disadvantage in a ‘narrative’ to take the document seriously as their participation in the SBA’s 8(a) program is on the line.
fedscoop.com
