City leaders ponder repealing minority contracting programs due to pressure from Trump

St. Louis officials are weighing whether to scrap a decades-old program that steered contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses, replacing it with a “race-neutral” initiative.

The city already had paused the work of CertifySTL, the program started in 2023 under former Mayor Tishaura Jones that certified businesses as “minority owned.” The actions appear to be part of a broader response to the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs nationwide.

Meetings have flowed back and forth between Mayor Cara Spencer, the city’s development chief, contractors and minority hiring advocates. Several of the latter, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, are urging the city to restart its existing minority contracting program while figuring out a legally defensible path forward.

Otis Williams, director of the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC), said no final decision has been made, adding: “We’re trying to come up with a program that’s best for the city.” Similarly, Spencer said she’s working to build consensus with city officials and minority and women contractors.

The city’s 25% minority- and 5% women-owned business (M/WBE) participation goals came about in the late 1980s after an attempt by then-Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr. to set minority participation goals by executive order. A lawsuit filed by a minority contractors group in 1990 accusing the city of engaging in racial discrimination led to the minority- and women-owned businesses percentages the city relied on until recently.

Virvus Jones, who was elected St. Louis comptroller in 1988 and played a key role in launching the city’s minority contracting guidelines, said the program faced resistance from white contractors and politicians from the start.

“They didn’t want to do it,” Jones said. “The Association of General Contractors — which were all white contractors — offered a course for their members on how not to comply with DEI rules and regulations. I had to file lawsuit after lawsuit because they (white contractors) were not complying with the executive order.”     

Ironically, the city is “pausing” or considering ending programs aimed at minority participation, even after a study it commissioned found that minority- and women-owned firms weren’t getting the mandated percentage of work from the city. The study disclosed that M/WBE firms that should have gotten 43% of city contractor dollars, only received 29% between the years 2016 and 2021.

Rolling back the clock on racial justice

In January, newly re-elected President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” effectively rescinding President Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 executive order that barred federal contractors from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

Trump’s Justice Department has moved to dismantle the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program, a nearly $37 billion affirmative action initiative that for decades guaranteed minority- and women-owned firms at least 10% of federal transportation contracts — a move that, if approved, would essentially neuter the program. 

At the same time, Trump signed an executive order targeting the Minority Business Development Agency, the only federal agency devoted solely to supporting minority-owned businesses. Under President Biden, the MBDA helped secure over $3.2 billion in contracts and $1.6 billion in capital for entrepreneurs of color, creating or preserving more than 23,000 jobs, according to BlackPressUSA.

In May, the Justice Department issued  a memo saying it could use a law intended to punish corruption to go after anyone else getting public money while engaging in diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

That memo, widely perceived as a threat from federal officials, panicked political leaders across the country, with many dismantling programs perhaps prematurely.

Aldermanic President Megan Green, who was at the meeting with city leaders and minority business advocates, said the city “shouldn’t ditch a decades-old program just because of a letter” from Trump’s Justice Department.

Jones agreed, leveling charges of cowardice on local politicians.

“St. Louis is the only city with a large Black population in this country that’s even pondering doing this. No other Democratic mayor — white or Black — is bending over to appease Trump,” Jones said.

In addressing the president’s “wholesale attempt to roll back the clock on racial justice,” the American Civil Liberties Union, created an online space titled “Trump on DEI and Anti-Discrimination Law.”

Asserting that “many components of Trump’s radical ‘anti-DEI’ agenda violate the Constitution and federal laws,” the ACLU is urging state and local officials to defend democracy and preserve civil rights gains, calling on governors and mayors to issue executive orders protecting DEI programs at the state and local levels.

Jones reiterated that point.

“These are goals, not quotas, so all (a mayor or governor) needs is an executive order to create and maintain equity. Trump can only impact federal money, not local, city taxpayer money. … He can’t prohibit us from setting aspirational goals for diversity. He simply can’t.

Jones is the father of former Mayor Tishaura Jones, whom Spencer beat in this year’s mayoral election. Biased perhaps, he accused Spencer of kowtowing to the billionaire white developers who funded her campaign.

“Mark my words, this is no accident. They didn’t like affirmative action back then, and they don’t like it now,” Jones said. 

Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.