For the St. Louis American
In the weeks following her becoming the first woman to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Rosa Park’s spirit will haunt the political proceedings to replace the first woman to sit on the nation’s highest court. While the media’s attention will be focused on Bush’s nominee’s stand on abortion and gay marriage, her spirit will quietly stand amidst the clamor and simply but defiantly demand immovable economic inclusion.
Both nationally and locally, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s opinion in the 1989 Richmond v. Croson case resonates as the defining measure for minority economic inclusion. Acknowledging that Richmond’s ordinance setting aside 30 percent of all city contract dollars for minorities reflected the political will of the city’s black majority population, O’Connor struck a balance to end perpetual economic prejudice by striking down Richmond’s goal as unconstitutional, while leaving open an avenue for minority empowerment: “Nothing we say here today precludes a state or local entity from taking action to rectify the effects of identified discrimination within its jurisdiction.”
Her ruling, which dramatically departed from the Supreme Court’s 1980 Fullilove v. Klutznick landmark case approving the minority goal Congress placed in the 1977 Public Works Act, provides the roadmap for minority economic inclusion. The starting point is admitting that the primary reason blacks and minorities are not working on construction projects is discrimination.
O’Connor admitted such in noting that Fullilove rested on “evidence before Congress that a nationwide history of past discrimination had reduced minority participation in federal construction grants,” and that there was such an “abundant” history of this discrimination “that traditional procurement practices, when applied to minority businesses, could perpetuate the effects of prior discrimination.”
Just as Congress had presented proof of discrimination as the basis for federal minority goals, cities, O’Connor ruled, had to do the same locally. Thereafter, across the nation, local and state governments – when pushed and pressed – commissioned studies to determine the extent of discrimination in the construction markets into which they pumped public funds. Known as “disparity studies” (because they measure the disparity between government contracts awarded minorities versus whites), they have consistently confirmed locally what Congress found nationally: that color, not qualifications, is the reason minorities are excluded from the construction industry.
Historically, African Americans dominated many of the skilled construction trades, as it has been estimated that prior to Reconstruction, 100,000 of the 120,000 skilled construction workers in the South were black. A 2001 disparity study conducted on St. Louis – a majority-black city and home to the Dred Scott legacy – demonstrates how completely that has changed. That study, which analyzed the city’s construction contracts for the period of 1995 through 1999, exposed that of the approximately $448 million spent by the city on construction projects, African Americans received only 5 percent of the prime contracts and just 11 percent of the subcontracts.
Those figures, while woefully unacceptable, reflect a marked increase from the period prior to 1990, when the City – following protest demonstrations and litigation – entered into a federal court Consent Decree with the St. Louis Minority Contractors Association that established both a 25 percent minority and 5 percent female goal for all city contracts and a program for inclusion.
Today, throughout the impoverished South, unimaginable dollars are whizzing by in FEMA Katrina construction contracts, with minorities getting next to nothing, while in St. Louis – home to powerhouse unions and contractors – $3 billion in construction projects is on tap, with minority inclusion often an illusion.
O’Connor’s decision 16 years ago provides both solutions for inclusion and the path for the diversity vital for a demographically changing America and a burgeoning black river town to be competitive in a global economy. If her successor retreats from her prudent position permitting minority goals and programs on public projects, the economic battle line that O’Connor deftly avoided will likely be drawn. Maybe like the one Rosa Parks drew half a century ago.
Eric E. Vickers represented St. Louis Minority Contractors in the 1990 federal lawsuit that resulted in the Consent Decree.
