Attorney General Todd Rokita could release his long-pending advisory opinion on the future of Indiana’s supplier-diversity program as early as this week, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The opinion answers a question Gov. Mike Braun’s Department of Administration formally posed last August: whether the Governor’s Commission on Supplier Diversity and the state’s Minority and Women’s Business Enterprises program can survive in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down race-conscious college admissions.
Sources tell Indy Politics the opinion runs at least three dozen pages and concludes the program’s race- and gender-based preferences cannot stand as currently structured. The expected finding would fold women-owned businesses out alongside minority-owned firms, leaving only veteran-owned small businesses — certified under a separate state classification — eligible for continued set-aside consideration.
At the core of the reasoning, according to those familiar with the draft, is a distinction between statistics and individual experience. The state’s disparity study documents a gap in the market, the argument runs, but does not establish that any individual Hoosier business owner suffered documented discrimination — the showing courts have increasingly demanded since the Students for Fair Admissions ruling.
The Division of Supplier Diversity, housed within the Department of Administration, has certified minority-, women- and veteran-owned businesses for state contracting since the program’s creation in 1983 under Indiana Code 4-13-16.5. The Braun administration requested the opinion on Aug. 26. Pending the review, the division postponed the next meeting of the Governor’s Commission and canceled its annual Business Conference and B2Bloom Expo, which connects underrepresented companies with state contracting opportunities.
Advisory opinions from the attorney general are not binding, but they carry significant weight in guiding executive-branch agencies.
The opinion would land as the capstone of a broader campaign by Rokita and the Braun administration to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion practices across state government. A policy requiring state contractors to certify they do not maintain DEI programs that treat people differently by race or sex took effect last July. In September, Rokita backed the Indiana Department of Transportation’s request for a waiver from the federal Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, joining 16 other state attorneys general in a letter calling race- and gender-based contracting presumptions unconstitutional. He has separately moved to bar law firms with DEI programs from holding state legal contracts.
Business groups, including the Indiana Chamber and local chambers of commerce, have been watching the review closely. An opinion eliminating the women- and minority-owned categories would almost certainly draw a legal challenge, and could put the program before a state court on a request for an injunction.
The attorney general’s office has not publicly confirmed a release date, and the timing could slip. Rokita’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Indy Politics will update this story when the opinion is released.
