Comment on FR Doc # 2026-11765

hold MBE and ByBlack certifications and bring 25 years of enterprise commercial experience to the company I left corporate America to build. I am writing to oppose this proposed rule because it targets one of the smallest, most narrowly scoped equity programs in the entire federal contracting system while billions of dollars in grants and contracts with no set-asides at all remain completely untouched. The 8(a) program represents a fraction of total federal contracting dollars. Singling it out while leaving the vast majority of procurement opportunities unreformed is not a principled stand for equal protection. It is a targeted dismantling of one of the few structural tools that has ever meaningfully addressed the documented, persistent exclusion of minority business owners from federal economic opportunity. If equity in contracting is truly the goal, the conversation should start with the thousands of programs and billions of dollars that have never had any set-asides at all, not with the small percentage carved out for businesses that have spent generations being locked out of the room. The reality I have lived and watched other Black business owners live is this: the barriers were never just legal. They were networks that did not include us, capital that did not flow to us, contracts that went to relationships built in rooms we were never invited into. That is not ancient history. It is the environment I am competing in right now. The 8(a) program exists because those informal systems of exclusion, that good old boy network, that unspoken affirmative action for the already-connected, has never been subject to a court challenge or a proposed rule. It has simply operated, quietly and effectively, for decades. Dismantling the rebuttable presumption does not level the playing field. It removes one of the few counterweights to a field that has never been level to begin with. The communities this program serves were marginalized, discriminated against, and systematically excluded from wealth-building opportunities for generations. The 8(a) program is not a handout. It is a correction, and a modest one at that. My ask is simple: if this administration is genuinely concerned about fairness in federal contracting, apply that standard everywhere. Look at the full picture of who gets contracts, who gets access, and who has always benefited from systems that were never race-neutral in practice. Do not dismantle one of the smallest equity programs in existence and call it reform. That is not justice. That is just a different kind of exclusion. The 8(a) program, at its best, is what a real shot looks like for people who have never been handed one. I am asking you to protect it.