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"National Security" Limits Judicial Review Of CICA Stay Override

Client Alert | less than 1 min read | 02.23.05

In Kropp Holdings, Inc. v. U.S. (Jan. 27, 2005), Judge Braden of the Court of Federal Claims held that, once legitimate interests of “national security” have been asserted and established to the court’s satisfaction, the court could stop review of a “best interests” CICA stay override, holding that national security makes it “not necessary” to go further. The Court also held that national security concerns and the context of a CICA stay override justify use of a more deferential standard of review of agency action than in the normal bid protest: whether the plaintiff demonstrated a clear error of judgment.

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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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