Eliminating equity goals — before even being required to do so — would reinforce existing disparities and widen racial and gender inequities in Milwaukee.
Take a tour of Milwaukee’s deep tunnel
Take a tour of Milwaukee’s deep tunnel. It was designed to capture and hold excess runoff and sewer water, thereby mitigating flooding.
The Civil Rights movement exposed how Black-, brown- and women-owned businesses were systematically excluded from public contracting. The equity goals public agencies use today exist to address that history and ensure opportunity is not limited by race or gender.
For decades, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) has been a model for intentionally increasing participation by small, women- and minority-owned business enterprises (SWMBE) and employing local workers. That record is now at risk.
Citing non-binding guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice, the MMSD Commission is considering eliminating goals for awarding contracts to women- and minority-owned businesses, and eliminating a policy requiring that contractors hire locally at a meeting on December 15. This proposed shift reflects a broader political effort to dismiss well-documented discrimination and dismantle policies designed to address it.
Discrimination in public contracting remains real and measurable. Eliminating equity goals — before even being required to do so — would reinforce existing disparities and widen racial and gender inequities in Milwaukee.
Milwaukee needs policies confronting injustice, not denying it. We call on the Commission to choose to build on decades of progress and uphold policies that narrow long-standing racial and gender inequities in Milwaukee.
Joe Fitzgerald, Milwaukee Water Commons
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