Court strikes down Houston’s race-based contracting program

Houston, Texas; July 28, 2026: A Houston-area landscaping business today won a permanent court order striking down the City’s race-based contracting requirements. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled in favor of Landscape Consultants of Texas and Metropolitan Landscape Management, both owned by Jerry and Theresa Thompson, permanently barring the City of Houston and the Midtown Management District from enforcing racial preferences in awarding public contracts.

“Equal protection means equal protection for everyone, not preferential treatment for some,” said Erin Wilcox, a senior attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation. “The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees every business owner the same shot at a government contract, regardless of race. This is a victory not just for the Thompsons, but for every American who believes government contracts should be won on merit.”

Landscape Consultants and Metropolitan, family-owned companies that maintain parks, playgrounds, and other government properties, have relied on Houston-area government contracts for decades. Houston’s ordinance required non-minority-owned firms like theirs to subcontract a fixed share of every contract — as much as 19 percent — to minority-owned businesses, while minority-owned firms faced no such requirement. The Thompsons filed suit in 2023, arguing the policy violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment.

In its opinion, the court found that Houston failed to comply with the Supreme Court’s framework in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard by failing to identify “any specific instances of past discrimination that violated the Constitution or a statute” that the program was attempting to remedy. Accordingly, Houston had not shown its racial classifications satisfied the most demanding standard of constitutional review. The court ruled Landscape Consultants and Metropolitan had “shown actual success on the merits” of their Equal Protection claim.

Pacific Legal Foundation represents Landscape Consultants of Texas and Metropolitan Landscape Management free of charge. The case is Landscape Consultants of Texas, Inc., et al. v. City of Houston, et al.