In 1995, in what Time called "a legal lightening bolt," the U.S. Supreme Court all but killed racial preferences in federal government contracting in a case litigated for a decade by Mountain States Legal Foundation, Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pefia. Therefore, in 1998, for the first time since it adopted racial quotas in government contracting in 1977, Congress debated the constitutionality of their use. Nonetheless, Congress left its racial preference language unchanged, leaving it to the courts to declare it unconstitutional. Instead of adhering strictly to the Supreme Court's commandments in Adarand, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit and then for the Eighth Circuit reinterpreted that ruling and upheld government's use of racial preferences in contracting. Given three separate opportunities to rebuke the appellate courts for their refusal to follow Adarand, the Supreme Court declined to hear the cases, most recently in November 2003, over a vigorous dissent by Justice Scalia and Chief justice Rehnquist. Experts now await a split in the circuits.
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机译：1995年，在《时代》杂志称为“法律减轻螺栓”的案件中，美国最高法院几乎终止了联邦政府合同制中的种族偏见，该案件由Mountain States Legal Foundation起诉Adarand Constructors，Inc.诉Pefia案长达十年。因此，自1977年政府在政府合同中采用种族配额以来，国会就在1998年首次辩论了使用种族配额的合宪性。尽管如此，国会仍保留其种族偏爱用语不变，让法院宣布其违宪。美国第十巡回上诉法院和第八巡回上诉法院没有严格遵守最高法院在阿达兰德的诫命，而是重新解释了该裁决并坚持政府在签约时使用种族偏爱。由于有三个不同的机会来谴责上诉法院拒绝追随阿达兰德，最高法院拒绝受理这些案件，最近一次是在2003年11月，因为斯卡利亚大法官和首席大法官雷恩奎斯特的强烈反对。现在，专家们正在等待电路分裂。
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