Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, September 27, 1994 TAG: 9409270115
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
The justices said they will decide whether the small-business affirmative action program - a boon to companies owned by minorities and women - unlawfully discriminates against companies owned by white men. The case could lead to the court's most important ruling on affirmative action since 1990.
The school desegregation case from Kansas City asks whether courts can require improvements in student achievement before some court-ordered programs can end.
The court also agreed to hear arguments in six other cases. Accepting the cases for review before the official beginning of the court's new term Monday gives the lawyers an extra week to prepare for argument.
The court agreed to decide:
In a California case, whether states may increase the time between parole hearings for all prison inmates, including those who were sentenced when state law required more frequent hearings.
Whether companies can trademark the color of their products. The case involves a Chicago company that seeks to regain a trademark for the color of the pads it makes for dry-cleaning presses.
In a Florida case, whether lawyers can be barred from using the mail to solicit clients until 30 days after a personal injury or death occurs.
Whether Curtiss-Wright Corp. must pay back health insurance benefits to retirees of its plant in Wood-Ridge, N.J. The company canceled the insurance when it closed the plant in 1983.
The affirmative action case involves the federal Small Business Act, which requires government agencies to use their purchasing power to help small businesses. Those owned by historically disadvantaged people receive special help.
The Transportation Department's Central Federal Lands Highway Division gives prime contractors on federal projects a 1.5 percent bonus if at least 10 percent of their subcontracts go to ``disadvantaged business enterprises.''
The agency wrote the bonus contingency into a highway-building project in the San Juan National Forest in southern Colorado that was awarded to Mountain Gravel and Construction Co.
Mountain Gravel subcontracted the guardrail work to Gonzales Construction Co., which meets the law's definition of a disadvantaged business.
The white-owned Adarand Constructors Inc. had submitted a lower bid. The company sued in 1990, contending that the agency's subcontracting policy was an unlawful set-aside based on race.
The Justice Department contends the Small Business Act does not promote any set-aside program but merely ``employs race as a factor.''
A federal judge and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Adarand.
The Supreme Court's last major affirmative-action ruling, in 1990, allowed federal officials to favor minorities in awarding broadcast licenses. The vote in that case was 5-4, and four of the five justices then in the majority have since retired.
In the school desegregation case, Missouri state officials seek to end a requirement that the state pay for higher salaries and other educational improvements as part of a desegregation plan.
Black parents in Kansas City sued in 1977 over the decline of what had become predominantly black schools, arguing that black students were being denied equal educational opportunities.
A federal judge ordered a desegregation plan based on educational improvements, voluntary student transfers to specialized magnet schools and massive capital improvements.
The educational quality program, which began in 1985, provides improvements such as smaller class sizes, more educational materials and full-day kindergarten.
The judge ordered the state to provide pay raises for teachers in 1987 and later expanded the requirement to include non-instructional personnel.
After the Supreme Court ruled in an unrelated 1992 case that judges can end supervision of desegregation plans piece by piece, Missouri sought to end the requirement that it fund the Kansas City improvement program.
The judge refused, and the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
by CNB