The Washington Post
By Joe Davidson
Wednesday, December 3, 2008; D01
On Nov. 4, amid all the excitement surrounding Barack Obama's election, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down a Pentagon program that included a 5 percent set-aside for companies run by African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.
The impact of the decision is unclear; the court's focus on an old Pentagon rule to decide the case created uncertainty about whether the set-aside remains. But if the panel's ruling stands, the implications for minority-owned companies that received almost $15 billion in fiscal year 2006 in Defense Department contracts could alter a long-standing program that allowed under-represented groups access to lucrative government contracts.
Last month, the panel ruled that the Defense Department erred when it failed to use a "price evaluation adjustment" tool, which allowed the Pentagon to increase bids from white-owned companies by 10 percent before comparing them to firms owned by people of color.
The Defense Department allowed International Computer and Telecommunications, a firm then owned by a Korean American couple, to win a computer contract even though its $5.75 million bid was $180,000 more than one submitted by Rothe Development, a San Antonio company owned by a white woman. Rothe sued the government in 1998.
A senior Defense Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that at the moment Pentagon officials are confused.
The court talked about the department using "preferential treatment based on race," but with the price tool defunct, that's not the case. "We don't really know what to do . . . " the official said about the decision. "We're having trouble explaining it."
Full Story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/02/AR2008120203067.html
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