U.S. Supreme Court Limits Racial Preferences in Awarding Government Contracts.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the 1995 case of Adarand Constructors v. Peña is one in a long series of Court decisions relating to affirmative action—that is, policies designed to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities and women in business, employment, and education. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly disallowed the use of racial and ethnic preferences in hiring, the agencies of the federal government soon began to enforce the statute by requiring that employers and schools achieve particular statistical outcomes. In the Public Employment Act of 1977, the U.S. Congress for the first time utilized the quantitative approach, mandating that contracts for public works projects include, whenever feasible, a 10 percent “set-aside” for minority business enterprises (MBEs).