by Carlos Campos

As published in the AJC

The Southeastern Legal Foundation filed a long-anticipated lawsuit in federal court today seeking to strike down the city of Atlanta's affirmative action contracting program, foundation President Matt Glavin said today.
"Today, we are filing this lawsuit on behalf of four plaintiffs," Glavin said. "These are real people who have been harmed in real ways and they deserve their day in court."

The decision to sue came after a meeting of the foundation's board Wednesday, where leaders of the city's business community had sought to persuade the law firm not to file it.

The lawsuit names Mayor Bill Campbell and seven other city officials.

The lawsuit claims that four white-owned contractors were denied business based on their race.

"Pursuant to the actual EBO [equal business opportunity] program, the city attempts to force general contractors (and subcontractors, who further subcontract work) to award subcontracts in a manner which discriminates in favor of businesses owned by African-Americans and women, and against businesses owned by persons of other ethnicities and gender," the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges the city's affirmative action program is used to "steer city contracting dollars to African-American and female friends and political supporters of defendant William Campbell . . . and political supporters of other officials of the City of Atlanta, where the city could have obtained the same contracts at a lower price by fair, legal, race-neutral and gender-neutral bid process."

One of the plaintiffs, Lee General Contractors Inc., claims it lost a contract, even though it was the low bidder, because it was unable to find African-American subcontractors to do work "at a reasonable price."

Another plaintiff, Peachtree Mechanical Inc., expressed interest in a city heating and air conditioning job, but was never contacted when the work was bid. The lawsuit claims the work instead went to an African-American company without going through a bid process.

Another plaintiff, Continental Pipe Services Inc., claims it was passed over for more than $7 million in pipe-related work given to DSI Inc., a firm owned by Oliver Lee, a political supporter of Campbell.

The lawsuit has been expected since Glavin hand-delivered a letter to Campbell's office on June 14, informing the mayor that the conservative public interest law firm would sue the city within 30 days if it did not voluntarily dismantle its program.

The foundation seized on a June ruling in federal court that struck down Fulton County's affirmative action program. A judge declared the program unconstitutional because statistical studies conducted to justify Fulton County's programs were flawed. The city of Atlanta uses the same studies to support its program.

Instead of dismantling the program, Campbell vowed to defend it. The city also arranged a series of public rallies in support of its affirmative action program, with help from minority businesses, civil rights and religious leaders.

The mayor took center stage in a nasty rhetorical exchange with the Southeastern Legal Foundation.

The bitter words traded between the two camps eventually compelled the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce and a group of powerful business leaders to ask both sides to tone down the debate for the sake of the city's image and economic prosperity.

The Southeastern Legal Foundation has set aside $500,000 to litigate the suit, and hired Atlanta lawyers Mason Barge and Lee Parks to work on it.

The city, meanwhile, has set aside $250,000 in taxpayer money to defend the lawsuit, and has embarked on a fund-raising campaign to raise another $1 million.

The legal foundation is expected to argue in the lawsuit that such a program amounts to preferential treatment — and is detrimental to white-owned businesses — a violation of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Atlanta's program seeks to award as much as 34 percent of city contracts to minority- and women-owned businesses.

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