On July 19, 2023, the U.S. District Court ordered the SBA for the Eastern District of Tennessee to stop using a rebuttable presumption of social disadvantage to evaluate applicants for the 8(a) Business Development program who belong to specific racial groups. The pertinent court case documents showing the decision are on a link provided for your review:

gov.uscourts.tned.93612.86.0.pdf

Right now, this has an effect on two elements of the 8(a) Business Development Program:

(1) In order to comply with the Court's ruling, SBA has temporarily halted the submission of new 8(a) applications.

(2) SBA must first affirmatively determine that the firm is socially disadvantaged before accepting and awarding 8(a) contract bids that have recently received approval or that are still pending.

What Does This Indicate? Immediately Take Action!

You should immediately start composing your narrative of social disadvantage to eventually submit to SBA if you belong to any of the designated groups with a rebuttable presumption of social disadvantage.

13 CFR 124.103(b)(1) contains a list of such specified groups

I would immediately contact an industry expert to assist with your social disadvantage narrative or for more details on how this decision and guidelines might affect you and your company, whether you are currently certified, you are in the process of becoming 8(a) certified, or you are considering an 8(a) Certification. ez8a and Advance 8a are the leaders in the industry, and can guide you through this new wrinkle.