TSA Back Under The Thumb off FAR and CICA
Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.27.08
After a 6-year holiday from fundamental procurement laws for overseeing federal agencies and assuring due process and fairness for contractors, the Transportation Security Administration as of June 23, 2008, must once again comply with FAR requirements and CICA competition rules, as well as defend itself in protests before GAO and contract disputes before the Board of Contract Appeals. Following two years of legislative effort by Senators Kerry and Snowe and August 2007 hearings by the House Homeland Security Committee, Congress included a little-noticed, cryptic, two-sentence provision in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 (Pub. L. No. 110-161, Div. E, Title V, Section 568) stripping TSA of its statutory exemption and requiring TSA to follow the same acquisition laws and regulations governing nearly all other federal agencies.
Insights
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].”
Client Alert | 4 min read | 06.12.26
Auto Dealers: The FTC Is Back in the Driver’s Seat — Warning Letters Signal Renewed Federal Scrutiny
Client Alert | 13 min read | 06.12.26
Client Alert | 4 min read | 06.12.26
