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Obama Admin. Chooses Not To Appeal Anti-Quota Decision

From a Pacific Legal Foundation press release:

The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Defense will not seek Supreme Court review of a November, 2008, federal appeals court ruling that struck down the Defense Department?s racial quota program in contracts....

On November 4, 2008, after 10 years of repeated appeals, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the program as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court found that Congress did not have sufficient evidence to establish that the government had a compelling interest for the quota program; specifically, there was not sufficient evidence of past discrimination against the targeted minority groups in Defense Department contracts to warrant any kind of ?reverse discrimination? as a remedy.

?DOD did not cite a single instance of alleged discrimination by DOD ... of awarding a prime contract, nor to a single instance of alleged discriminating by a private contractor identified as the recipient of a prime defense contract,? the court noted.
....
In submitting its brief, PLF represented the Center for Equal Opportunity, a national think tank devoted exclusively to the promotion of colorblind equal opportunity and racial harmony.

The case is Rothe Development Corporation v. United States, 545 F.3d 1023 (Fed. Cir. 2008). PLF?s brief opposing the Pentagon racial quotas, can be found at www.pacificlegal.org.

It?s hard to know what to make of the Obama administration?s failure to appeal this encouraging anti-quota opinion. Given the administration?s recent track record in other areas it would be tempting to suspect that inattention or incompetence left the decision to Bush holdovers ... except that there any serious Bush holdovers still around and the career civil rights staff is as pro-preference as the Obamanauts.

A more likely explanation is that the new team did not want to launch a major fight over quotas this early in their day. Why appeal to a Supreme Court that still (but only temporarily, the Obamanauts hope) favors colorblind equality over racial quotas when they have every intention of changing that Court as soon as they can?

Whatever the reason, let us savor this strong victory ... while it lasts. But stay tuned for the upcoming arguments when the current quota legislation comes up for re-authorization later this year.

Full post as published by Discriminations on February 13, 2009 (boomark / email).