Trump administration targets diversity program that has boosted minority owned businesses in Minnesota

WASHINGTON Kenneth Bush who considers himself a civic-minded entrepreneur is proud that his construction company has grown to encouragement employees and their families As one of children of what he called a dirt poor Black family Bush announced he worked hard to become the owner of Bush Companies a Rochester-based business that provides temporary traffic control services at a construction site He says his flagging company is among the largest of its kind in the state Bush has had help in growing his company from a Reagan-administration campaign that requires state and local transportation departments that receive federal funds to apportion of infrastructure contracts to disadvantaged small businesses owned by women and minorities But now the billion Disadvantaged Business Enterprise DBE activity is threatened with extinction in Minnesota and across the nation Two white-owned construction businesses won a temporary injunction that has stopped the plan in Kentucky and Indiana two states where those companies had business In addition the Justice Department has flipped from defending the DBE operation when President Biden was in office to agreeing with its foes If a federal judge in Kentucky accepts a settlement the Justice Department has agreed to with the white-owned businesses the venture that has helped American small businesses including more than in Minnesota would abruptly end Bush noted he is saddened that Trump who campaigned on a promise to help Black entrepreneurs would help pull the plug on the DBE plan The activity was formed by Ronald Reagan who was a great president noted Bush who has twice run for a seat in the state Legislature as a Republican He announced his company had contracts in the past year all DBE-based Did the operation help me Yes ma am it did Bush commented Laura Miller the owner of Nowthen-based On-Call Pavement Sweeping disclosed she s benefitted from the DBE activity for more than years The greater part of that help comes through the requirement that big construction companies that want to compete for transportation projects hire women- and minority owned subcontractors to meet their DBE goals So if they are looking for four or five small businesses the prime contractor would favor DBE small businesses Miller explained Without the DBE scheme Miller commented it seems that a lot of the larger primes would maybe do a lot of the services in house So the DBE is just one benefit to encourage small businesses and the more small businesses we have in society the better it is for the middle class Miller commented Alfonzo Williams who rushed to the site of George Floyd s murder to shut down an intersection and initiate the creation of a memorial square is a former felon who is now the owner of a Minneapolis-based construction company that specializes in demolition concrete work and construction cleanup In the DBE undertaking for eight years Williams disclosed the boost it gave his company helped him turn his life around I am able to feed my family and I am able to help others he announced But in Indiana where a court injunction has already ended the effort Stephanie Duncan has already felt the pain that may await similar firms all over the country Duncan s company which supplies bridge expansion joints has seven contracts right now By her estimate she would normally have if the DBE scheme were in effect Stephanie Duncan Because of the steep and sudden drop in business she hasn t been able to pay her business rent in months She went on to detected DBEs of America an advocacy group to raise awareness and inform DBE-dependent firms about the progress of the situation that will decide their future Duncan has also become a certified DBE contractor in other states in hopes of getting business across state lines where DBE preferences are in effect for now But if the DBE project is deemed illegal and dismantled nationwide that won t help The DBE activity was put in place for a reason Miller stated Because you know these small businesses they couldn t get work because it was a good old boys club And that s what it ll be again The needle didn t move In October Mid-America Milling and Bagshaw Trucking claimed that as white-owned businesses they lost transportation infrastructure work to minority and women-owned businesses that benefitted from DBE encouragement The companies are represented by a Milwaukee-based conservative nonprofit law firm called the Wisconsin Institute for Law Liberty which declared the DBE scheme had done nothing to boost women and minority entrepreneurs Defendants have mentioned and will likely continue to say that the DBE scheme is necessary because there are disparities in America and that they must give certain preferences to fix this trouble one of the institute s court filings declared Yet despite the untold billions of dollars spent over the past four decades defendants have readily conceded that the needle did not move in response to their preferences In supporting the plaintiffs suit the Trump Justice Department echoed the argument that DBE is unconstitutional by not treating all transportation sector companies the same In September Kentucky U S District Judge Gregory Tatenhove issued an injunction that located that aspects of the initiative were likely unconstitutional and he halted the project in Kentucky and Indiana Van Tatenhove cited the U S Supreme Court s decision barring affirmative action admission policies in higher tuition multiple times in his ruling Democracy Forward a nonprofit liberal legal group that has filed multiple suits against the Trump administration and the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Guidance Fund joined the circumstance after it became clear the Trump Justice Department would no longer defend the DBE project Minority and women-owned businesses have been burdened by discrimination for centuries It is both legally right and morally necessary for the governing body and the private sector to take action to remedy that discrimination commented Sarah von der Lippe a lawyer with the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Schooling Fund The Minnesota Department of Transportation commented in an email that it strongly believes programs that encouragement small and diverse businesses are critical to our success and the economic vitality of our state and that there are state-based programs to help accomplish that goal though it did not identify a specific project As far as the DBE undertaking the department stated it has adopted a wait-and-watch attitude Nothing has changed in terms of our implementation of the DBE effort as of currently and we will continue monitoring closely and communicating as swiftly and clearly as we are able the Minnesota Department of Transportation declared The post Trump administration targets diversity venture that has boosted minority owned businesses in Minnesota appeared first on MinnPost