The Houston City Council will be voting to amend a program that gives city contracts to companies based on whether they are owned by women or racial minorities. In other words, it's more DEI.
The program has existed since 1984 and is run by the city's Office of Business Opportunity. It uses guidelines that were based on a 2006 disparity study, and now, nearly 20 years later, it's coming under scrutiny again because new data suggests that Hispanics, Asians, and women-owned businesses don't actually face any disparities.
Now City Council will be voting on whether to remove the aforementioned groups from the program, but conservatives say they should shut the program down entirely. That's the position of Gary Polland, with the Texas Conservative Review.
He told KTRH, "We don't need set-asides and special programs, when what we're supposed to be doing is hiring the best and the brightest, who will give the most bang for the buck."
Polland went on to say that oftentimes, these programs don't actually end up helping the groups that they claim to be designed to support. He said, "These programs have been used to take care of insiders' friends, who are able to take advantage of the opportunities given to them because of their race. It's not right."
On top of all that, this program, like so many other DEI initiatives across the country, is already facing lawsuits. Polland says at this point, it's only a matter of time before the courts or the legislature shut it down.
He also said that at the end of the day, this program, like all other DEI programs, simply doesn't work. According to him, "Part of it is, it's manipulated almost like all other contracts the government does. It turns out not to be appropriate for everybody, and we're not getting the best bang for our buck."