High court takes a pass on reverse discrimination case

The Supreme Court Tuesday abandoned its plan to rule on a major challenge to federal agencies' affirmative action programs.

The justices concluded the case, involving a white-owned contractor from Colorado, was not a good vehicle for deciding whether federal affirmative action rules amount to reverse discrimination, the Associated Press reported.

The court's action came in a unanimous, unsigned ruling and is an anticlimactic end to what had been billed as a highly important case.

Opponents of racial preferences had hoped the court would use the 11-year fight over government highway contracts to effectively declare federal affirmative action programs unconstitutional.

The case, Adarand Constructors Inc. v. Mineta, had developed procedural problems that several justices suggested last month were too messy to fix.

Adarand had sued over a 1990 Transportation Department program that gave bonuses to highway contractors if at least 10 percent of their subcontracts went to "disadvantaged business enterprises." Companies owned by racial minorities were presumed to be disadvantaged. The Colorado-based Adarand, owned by a white man, said the program was unlawfully based on race.

The court flirted with overturning affirmative action programs in its 1995 decision involving the same case.