In a big victory for proponents of the 8(a) program, the Supreme Court of the United States has denied the Petition for Certiorari filed by Rothe Development, Inc.

Consequently, the decision of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit finding the statutes establishing 8(a) program to be constitutional will be allowed to stand.

For those of you who are new to the Rothe Development case, it is a long-running constitutional challenge to the SBA’s 8(a) Business Development program. Rothe argued that the statutes implementing the 8(a) program establish a racial classification in violation of the equal protect rights afforded by the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment. Rothe contended the statute should be struck down as unconstitutional, which would mean the end of the 8(a) program–or at least the 8(a) program as we know it.

Rothe Development has been making its way through the federal court system since 2015. In an earlier decision, the District Court for the District of Columbia upheld the 8(a) program despite subjecting the statutes to the Supreme Court’s most intense level of legal scrutiny.

Rothe subsequently appealed the decision of the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. As we covered, the D.C. Circuit concluded that a less demanding level of scrutiny applied, which the 8(a) statutes comfortably passed. Accordingly, the 8(a) statutes were allowed to stand.

After its loss at the D.C. Circuit, Rothe development filed a petition for Certiorari, which we also covered. A Petition for Certiorari is the formal process by which a party not entitled to an appeal as a matter of right may nevertheless request the Supreme Court decide its case. The Supreme Court, however, grants a very limited number of petitions each year.

Rothe Development’s Petition for Certiorari was not granted by the Supreme Court. As a result, the decision reached by the D.C. Circuit finding the 8(a) program to be constitutional will stand.

While Rothe Development ends with the 8(a) program’s survival, the decisions do leave the program open to further legal challenge. Most notably, the difference in legal scrutiny applied between the District Court and the Court of Appeals indicates that there may be more than one reasonable interpretation of the 8(a) programs statutes, which could result in further litigation down the road. Additionally, Rothe (apparently for strategic reasons), challenged only the underlying statutes–not the SBA’s regulations implementing them. A separate constitutional challenge to the regulations remains a possibility.

For now, however, the 8(a) program stands unscathed–and 8(a) supporters can breathe a big sigh of relief.