QCity Metro16%
New N.C. law forces Charlotte to overhaul contracting program 14%
By Glenn H. Burkins20%
8/4/2026, 10:50:11 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 18 faulty reasoning types, including Framing Effect, Availability Heuristic, and Optimism Bias, with Pessimism Bias as the most egregious example at 11.9% saturation with 106 hits. Analysis detected 589 faulty-reasoning hits from 894 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 22.7% and a BS Rank of 14% (26,582 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 86.90% of the article peer group.
The city of Charlotte, in compliance with a new state law, has eliminated its race- and gender-based contracting goals, officials said on Monday.
In its place, the city will formulate a new framework that disregards race and gender.
Deputy City Manager Monica Allen, speaking at a City Council committee meeting, called the change “unprecedented.”
“We’re really focusing on stabilizing right now and redefining what it means for our community to have a strong and emerging small business enterprise program,” he said, referring to the new program that is meant to be race-and gender-neutral.
In fiscal year 2025, the city spent nearly $145 million with minority- and women-owned businesses, with nearly $102 million going to minority-owned businesses.
The chart above shows the amount of money spent by the city of Charlotte with minority business enterprises (MBEs) and women business enterprises (WBE) for each of the past five fiscal years.
Now under Senate Bill 257, race- and gender-conscious contracting goals are outlawed for state and local governments.
The bill also dissolved North Carolina’s Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Office and ended its HUB certification program.
Republicans in the General Assembly passed the bill over the veto of Gov.
Josh Stein, a Democrat.
Other states have passed similar bills, part of a broad initiative begun under President Donald Trump to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in America.
Council member Malcolm Graham, who attended the Monday session, said the shift would significantly reduce the number of contracts awarded to minority- and women-owned businesses.
“Our numbers are about to plummet for the utilization of Black firms, Hispanic firms, based on this legislation,” Graham said.
“There can be no more goals.
… That has a really big impact on minority-owned business communities from an economic development perspective.”
Graham noted, for example, the planned $1.3 billion renovation of Bank of America Stadium — a project funded with $650 million in tax dollars.
Under the city’s previous program, officials had set a 27% participation goal for firms owned by women and minorities.
Tepper Sports & Entertainment, which owns and operates the stadium, said in an email to QCity Metro that it would "comply with all applicable laws and requirements as we move forward with the modernization of Bank of America Stadium.
We will continue to work closely with the City, as well as the State Auditor, whom we meet with monthly, to review progress and provide updates on our efforts."
Tepper owns the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and the Major League Soccer team Charlotte Football Club.
In addition to the stadium project, the new law also eliminates race- and gender-based goals for projects such as the proposed $3.2 billion Interstate 77 expansion plan and the multibillion-dollar plan to build a new light rail line through Charlotte.
“We are no longer able to set goals based on race or gender,” City Attorney Andrea Leslie-Fite told the council committee.
Under the city’s charter, she said, Charlotte may still set contracting goals for small businesses, so long as those goals are race-and gender neutral.
Officials said the city is now focused on building a contracting program that’s free of DEI goals.
Meanwhile, the city has stopped collecting data relating to race and gender in contracting, Steven Coker, Charlotte’s business inclusion officer, told council members.
The city has also revised its policies and procedures, contracts, procurement language and systems to exclude all references to race and gender.
Allan, the deputy city manager, said she would provide the committee with an additional update in September.
Officials said the city, in anticipation of the legislation, had been working for months to lay the groundwork for a race- and gender-neutral contracting program, and they pledged aggressive outreach to inform small businesses that may be affected by the changes.
According to the Monday presentation, about 625 firms that were once registered with the city solely as a minority- or woman-owned business must now re-register under the city’s gender- and race-neutral small business enterprise (SBE) program.
An additional 805 firms — 334 of which are minority- or woman-owned — were already registered under the SBE program and will not be required to re-register.
(QCity Metro had registered with the city as a minority-owned business.)
In response to a question from council member Kimberly Owens, the city attorney said Charlotte could make a legal case for using other criteria, such as business zip codes, to support participation goals that are race- and gender-neutral.
“We will catalog and be prepared to defend those actions based on a reasonable reading of the law and the data that supports it,” Leslie-Fite said.
City officials said they were reviewing policies from other cities to establish “best practices,” with a long-term goal to create North Carolina’s best SBE program.
Graham, who has held several jobs related to diversity and business inclusion, said the city and its private partners must “remain intentional” in working with minority- and woman-owned businesses despite the elimination of race-conscious goals.
“I’m very concerned about this and the impact that it has on other issues that the city is facing,” Graham said.
“I look forward to working with you to ensure that my comments turn out to be wrong, but I think, based on experience, I think I know where we’re headed.”
This article was updated to include a statement from Tepper Sports & Entertainment.
Speakers
7speakers46%attributed speech480writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageMalcolm Graham
177 attributed words43% of attributed speech37% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Loading…
Analysis
Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.