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Absent Formal Elimination, Offerors Have Standing to Pursue Size Protests

Client Alert | 1 min read | 12.14.16

In granting an appeal filed by Crowell & Moring, the SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals overturned an underlying area office decision dismissing a company’s challenge to the eligibility of an awardee in a DoE set-aside procurement. Rejecting the area office’s grounds that the company “would not have a reasonable chance” to be selected for award even if it prevailed in its size protest, OHA held that the company had standing to protest because its low technical ratings did not render its proposal unacceptable and the agency had made no finding that it was otherwise ineligible for award.

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Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26

DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”...

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