US judge in Texas rules minority business agency must serve all races
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[March 07, 2024]
By Steve Gorman
(Reuters) - A federal judge in Texas has ruled that the U.S. Minority
Business Development Agency, founded during the Nixon administration,
must avail itself to disadvantaged entrepreneurs of all races and
ethnicities, including whites.
The summary judgment rendered on Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Mark
Pittman, appointed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, was the
latest in a recent series of federal court decisions rolling back
decades of affirmative action programs aimed at remedying racial
discrimination.
Pittman, a judge in the Forth Worth branch of the Northern Texas
District, sided with two white businessmen who sued the Minority
Business Development Agency (MBDA), a branch of the Commerce Department,
last year after being denied benefits on the basis of race.
The plaintiffs were told they were ineligible for agency assistance
because they were not members of any of the races or ethnicities
included on a list of qualified minorities presumed to be disadvantaged
and thus entitled to services, according to the judge's summary of the
case.
Pittman found that presumption violates the U.S. Constitution's
guarantee of equal protection under the law, and cited the U.S. Supreme
Court's ruling in a case last June striking down race-conscious
admissions policies at Harvard University and the University of North
Carolina.
MBDA attorneys argued that the agency's polices are constitutional
because they help rectify past discrimination in which the government
played a role, according to background in the judge's decision.
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But Pittman said such reasoning effectively punishes non-minorities.
"While the agency's work may help alleviate opportunity gaps faced
by MBEs (minority business owners), two wrongs do not make a right,"
the judge wrote.
As part of his 93-page decision, the judge granted a permanent
injunction barring the $550 million agency from "using an
applicant's race or ethnicity in determining whether they can
receive business center programming."
Three white businessmen originally brought the lawsuit - Jeffrey
Nuziard, owner of a chain of sexual wellness clinics in north Texas;
Christian Bruckner, a disabled immigrant from Romania who started a
federal contracting business in Florida; and Matthew Piper, an
architect in Wisconsin.
Piper was dismissed from the case on grounds that he lacked legal
standing, though the effect of the judge's order applies to the
agency as a whole and all applicants for its benefits.
The agency itself, formed in 1969 by then-President Richard Nixon as
the Office of Minority Business Enterprise and made permanent in
2021, was the primary defendant in the case. Also named were
President Joe Biden, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Donald
Cravins, under secretary for minority business development, as
defendants.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Michael Perry)
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