District Court Strikes Down Race Preference in USDA's and SBA's Contracting Schemes

Reason/Volokh Conspiracy ^ | 7/19/23 | EUGENE VOLOKH

[CFW]

From Judge Clifton Corker's opinion today in Ultima Servs. Corp. v. U.S. Dep't of Agric. (E.D. Tenn.):

This case concerns whether, under the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection, Defendants the United States' Department of Agriculture ("USDA") and the Small Business Administration ("SBA") may use a "rebuttable presumption" of social disadvantage for certain minority groups to qualify them for inclusion in a federal program that awards government contracts on a preferred basis to businesses owned by individuals in those minority groups.

The court generally answers this "no"; here's an excerpt, though if you're interested in the details you should read the whole opinion:

"The liberty protected by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause contains within it the prohibition against denying to any person the equal protection of the laws." United States v. Windsor (2013); see also Bolling v. Sharpe (1954); Ctr. for Bio-Ethical Reform v. Napolitano, 648 F.3d 365, 379 (6th Cir. 2011) ("The Fifth Amendment, of course, does not itself contain a guarantee of equal protection, but instead incorporates, as against the federal government, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."). Courts, therefore, "evaluate equal protection claims against the federal government under the Fifth Amendment just as [they] would evaluate equal protection claims against state and local governments under the Fourteenth Amendment." …

[CFW]

Link to ruling here:

https://www.cir-usa.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/ultima_v_usda-order-on-mtd.pdf

[Right_Wing_Madman]

This case concerns whether, under the Fifth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection

The reporter is confused. The equal protection clause is in the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Fifth Amendment.

[Flash Bazbeaux]

There’s two of them. Five and Fourteen.

[TonyinLA]

Well, duh. Us conservatives reflexively know denying gov benefits [or anything] on account of race is wrong. It’s our values, you see. We have always implemented merit as the standard in our daily lives, and do so without any government decrees. That’s also why the republicans fought and won the civil war against the democrats, passed civil rights laws over democrat hollering, and eradicated Jim Crow laws in the democratic south. The lefties really want those days back.

[Reverend Wright]

“That’s also why the republicans fought and won the civil war against the democrats, passed civil rights laws over democrat hollering, and eradicated Jim Crow laws in the democratic south”

---

A catalogue of Republican stupidity.

[A strike]

True but, not cogent.

[TonyinLA]

Read a history book, if you can.

[Trumpisourlastchance]

The 5th amendment applies to the Fed Leviathan. The 14th amendment applies to the states.