[Art: Amanda Duffy / Laughing Stock]

Broward County has become the second south Florida county to suspend its affirmative action program. The move comes in the wake of a reverse-discrimination lawsuit the Associated General Contractors of America filed against Broward. The suit alleges the county violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection guarantees and federal civil rights law by setting goals to ensure minority-owned contractors get a share of government contracts. Palm Beach County dropped its program in 2003.

John Robinson, a shareholder in the employment law practice at Fowler White Boggs Banker in Tampa, says much of the litigation involving set-asides arises from construction subcontractors who, despite low bids, lose work to minority or female-owned contractors. “Is it reverse discrimination if a white male contractor loses work simply because of race and sex?” he asks. Governments may set goals for outreach to minority and female contractors, Robinson notes, but quotas are more frequently lost when challenged.

Broward will spend four months reviewing its practices and plans to spend $500,000 over the next 12 months to determine whether the affirmative action program is still needed.

Other Florida counties would do well to put a spotlight on their own programs, says Perry F. Sofferman, an attorney and CEO of the Palm Beach Strategy Group in Boca Raton. “This will have ramifications for industries outside of construction,” he says, “as it really goes to the issue of how state and local government is able to properly address the sins of the past without committing sins in the present.”