Articles

North Carolina's contracting quotas found to be unconstitutional in H.B. Rowe v. Tippett

July 23, 2010 | By PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION

Author:  Ralph W. Kasarda Under the guise of its Minority Business Enterprise and Woman Business Enterprise Program (MWBE Program), North Carolina has operated a discriminatory public contracting program since 1989.  Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, in H.B. Rowe v. Tippett, held that most of the MWBE Program is unconstitu ...

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Federal courts expanding disparate impact analysis in recent Voting Rights Act cases

October 01, 2014 | By CHRIS KIESER

Here on the Liberty Blog, we have often posted about the perils of “disparate impact” laws; that is, laws that allow courts to find illicit discrimination in a facially neutral action without any showing of improper intent (here, here, and here, for example).  These statutes require businesses and government actors to engage in pernic ...

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Victory in EEOC v. Freeman; strong rebuke for the EEOC

February 20, 2015 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

This morning the Fourth Circuit rejected the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s latest attempt to expand disparate impact law.  In EEOC v. Freeman, the government brought suit against a company that ran employee applicants through criminal background checks before hiring them. The EEOC alleged that Freeman’s criminal backgro ...

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PLF files brief in North Carolina voter ID case

June 17, 2016 | By CHRIS KIESER

In 2013, on the heels of the Supreme Court’s Shelby County decision that ended federal preclearance of voting laws, North Carolina enacted an omnibus election reform bill that set off a partisan firestorm in the state and on editorial pages nationwide. On top of the much-discussed voter identification requirement, the law repealed same-day re ...