The Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise (DBE) Program is a critical tool to start to level the playing field for women- and minority-owned small businesses in the transportation sector. 

The program seeks to address a history of discrimination that has often excluded these businesses from government contracts and access to essential industry networks. However, this lifeline is now under threat due to a lawsuit seeking to gut the program.

A coalition of organizations dedicated to promoting opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses in the transportation industry, along with several such businesses, has taken legal action to defend the DBE Program. 

The coalition working to defend the program includes the National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC), Women First National Legislative Committee, Airport Minority Advisory Council (AMAC), Women Construction Owners & Executives, Illinois Chapter (WCOE Illinois), Atlantic Meridian Contracting Corporation, and Upstate Steel. The groups are represented in the matter by Democracy Forward, the Minority Business Enterprise Legal Defense and Education Fund (MBELDEF), and Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs LLP. 

The organizations and businesses have filed a motion to intervene in the case, asking the court to allow them to participate in the case to safeguard opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses to thrive in a historically exclusionary industry. 

Without the DBE Program, small businesses owned by women and people of color may face closure, jeopardizing their livelihoods and weakening efforts to rebuild and diversify America’s infrastructure. They seek to ensure the government begins to fulfill its obligation to address and remedy discrimination while empowering underrepresented business owners to contribute to the nation’s economic growth.