Featured Case

Contact:  Sharon L. Browne

Status: A petition for review to the California Supreme Court was granted.

Summary: Publicly flouting Proposition 209, San Francisco extended its race- and sex-based public contracting program to 2008.  Since 1984, San Francisco has been enforcing a series of public contracting ordinances that discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, minority- and women-owned businesses.  When the program was set to expire in June, 2003, the City quickly extended the illegal program for another five years.  Under the public contracting program, bids submitted by minority- and women- owned business enterprises are calculated as being 10% lower than what they actually are.  Schram Construction, Inc., a San Francisco-based contractor who has performed numerous contracts for the City, submitted a low bid on a job.  When the City considered awarding the project to a woman-owned business that had submitted a higher bid, Schram decided that enough was enough.  PLF filed a lawsuit on behalf of Schram Construction, Inc., seeking to have this illegal public contracting program declared unconstitutional.

After hearing argument on cross motions for summary judgment, the judge consolidated this case with another challenge to the same ordinance, Coral Construction v. City and County of San Francisco.  Ruling in both cases, the court declared the ordinance unconstitutional and issued an injunction prohibiting San Francisco from discriminating or granting preferences in public contracting on the basis of race or sex.  San Francisco appealed to the First District Court of Appeal.  The appellate court agreed that Proposition 209 was not preempted by the Human Rights Treaty and that Proposition 209 did not violate federal equal protection principles, but remanded the matter to the trial court to determine whether the City intentionally discriminated against minority and women in public contracting.