Minority groups plan to file a discrimination complaint against the city, saying Boston’s “old boys’ network” has frozen out Black and Hispanic business owners from contracts under the Walsh administration.
The embargoed news release from the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts, the Greater Boston Latino Network and Amplify Latinx says the three organizations will file a civil rights complaint on Wednesday against the city “in response to gross racial disparities in public contracting under the Walsh Administration.”
They and Lawyers for Civil Rights allege Boston “has engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Black- and Latinx-owned businesses by maintaining a public procurement system that unlawfully excludes these businesses from equal contracting opportunities.”
They site the reporter commissioned in 2018 that found that just 1.2% of the $2.1 billion spent in public contracts went to businesses owned by Black or Hispanic people.
The organizations wouldn’t make the complaint available Tuesday night. They said they plan to file the complaint at the start of business on Wednesday.
“The stark racial disparities — over which the City has direct control — demonstrate deliberate and intentional discrimination against Black- and Latinx-owned businesses on the
part of the City,” the organizations allege in the news release they sent out. “Complainants outline how the findings of the disparity study constitute compelling evidence of
discrimination, with Black and Latinx business owners confirming the many ways in which the City’s ‘old boys’ network” unfairly excludes them from contracting opportunities.”
The organizations claim the minority businesses were ready and willing, but simply never got the call from Mayor Martin Walsh’s administration.
“The study reveals what BECMA members and community leaders have been saying for decades: The City of Boston does not value Black businesses or the Black community,” said Segun Idowu of BECMA, the lead complainant in the case. “Mayor Martin J. Walsh and his administration have failed to deliver fair and equitable procurement for Black
owned businesses, as well as for other minority-owned businesses. Bold leadership is required to immediately correct this systemic problem.”
The news release says the the complaint “calls for immediate federal intervention and oversight to compel the City to enact race-conscious measures to break down the discriminatory barriers to equitable contracting opportunities,” as well as a “community-driven remediation process.”
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