Module 5 · Methodology & legal framework
How it was built, and where the line is
This page is the honesty layer. It explains the index in plain language, names every source, states the limits of public data, and sets out the constitutional standard a defensible disparity study must meet.
The disparity index in plain language
The disparity index divides utilization by availability. Availability is a group's share of the firms in the market. Utilization is that group's share of the dollars spent. If a group is 30% of firms and wins 30% of dollars, the index is 1.0, parity.
An index of 0.50 means a group wins half the work its presence in the market would predict. Across disparity studies, an index below 0.80 is treated as substantial underutilization, the same threshold used here.
Industry-cluster crosswalk
Procurement-relevant clusters are built from 2-digit NAICS sectors so availability and the spend picture line up.
| Construction | NAICS 23 |
| Professional & Technical Services | NAICS 54 |
| Information Technology | NAICS 51 |
| Goods & Commodities | NAICS 31-33, 42, 44-45 |
| Other Services | NAICS 56, 81, 48-49 |
Provenance
Every figure traces to a public source
These are the datasets behind the portal, each retrieved and cached to static JSON at build time. No government endpoint is called at runtime.
U.S. Census Annual Business Survey (ABS), Company Summary 2022
2026-07-28Employer-firm counts by owner sex, ethnicity, race, and veteran status, cross-tabbed by 2022 NAICS sector and geography. Reference year 2022, released Dec 2024.
www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/abs/data/2022/AB220U.S. Census Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics 2022 (NES-D)
2026-07-28All-firm, nonemployer, and employer-firm counts and receipts by owner demographics; used for the employer-vs-all-firm availability comparison and firm-size analysis.
www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/abs/data/2022/AB220City of Boston Discretionary Spending FY19-FY26 Q3 (Analyze Boston)
2026-07-281,064,059 payment lines, $7.54B, with the City's own MBE/WBE certification flag on every line. Certified-only shares are a floor on true MWBE participation: the 2020 study counted firms certified or not.
data.boston.gov/dataset/city-of-boston-discretionaryCity of Boston Contract Award FY19-FY26 Q3 (Analyze Boston)
2026-07-2822,054 contracts of $10,000 or more with maximum award value, department, procurement category, and the City's MBE/WBE and SLBE/SBE certification flags.
data.boston.gov/dataset/city-of-boston-contract-awar2020 City of Boston Disparity Study (BBC Research & Consulting)
2026-07-28The City's prior disparity study: FY2015-FY2019, 47,000+ contracts, ~800 availability surveys, RGMA of Norfolk, Suffolk, Plymouth, Middlesex, and Essex counties. Final report February 2021. All baseline availability, utilization, and disparity-index figures are BBC's, from the Executive Summary.
www.boston.gov/sites/default/files/file/2021/02/2020City of Boston RFP EV00017483, Disparity Study Consulting Services
2026-07-28The solicitation this preliminary analysis anticipates: Mayor's Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion, released June 29, 2026 under M.G.L. c. 30B; proposals due August 13, 2026 (extended from July 30).
www.boston.gov/bid-listings/ev00017483U.S. Census cartographic county boundaries (Plotly / TIGER)
2026-07-28County polygons for the RGMA choropleth, trimmed to the five BBC RGMA counties.
raw.githubusercontent.com/plotly/datasets/master/geoGoverning legal framework
What a constitutionally defensible study must satisfy
Race-conscious public contracting measures face strict scrutiny. A jurisdiction must show a strong basis in evidence of identified discrimination in its own market, typically a disparity study, and must narrowly tailor any remedy. A statistical gap is the starting point, not the conclusion.
Not a contracting case, but it raised the scrutiny climate for every race-conscious program. Narrow tailoring, race-neutral-first sequencing, and group-specific evidence are now existential, and a record built for that climate is the only durable kind.
The leading federal appellate treatment of a disparity-study record, and a case our counsel litigated. The Fourth Circuit upheld race-conscious measures only for groups where the evidence showed statistically significant disparities, and struck them down where it did not. It does not govern Massachusetts; it shows how hard a serious challenge presses.
Chapter 30B is the statute this procurement runs under. Section 18 authorizes the City's Sheltered Market Program, which designates contracts for certified disadvantaged vendors. The study's evidence must be strong enough to support that instrument, and any extension of it, under strict scrutiny.
Massachusetts sits in the First Circuit, which has no modern disparity-study precedent as developed as H.B. Rowe. That is not a lighter burden; it means a Boston record must be built to the strictest reading of Croson itself. A preliminary index from public data cannot meet that bar. It can show where to look. A defensible study pairs availability and utilization with statistical significance testing, anecdotal evidence, and narrowly tailored, group-specific recommendations.
Case-tested outside counsel
Kevin V. Parsons
Parsons served as counsel for the challenger in H.B. Rowe, so he has pressed the attack a disparity-study record must survive. For Boston, he reviews the design, preliminary findings, and proposed remedies against the strictest reading of Croson, the standard a First Circuit record must satisfy on its own evidence, then authors and signs the final defensibility opinion.
- It uses an equal-weight public firm count, not a capacity- and willingness-adjusted availability survey.
- Utilization comes from the City's open discretionary-spending and contract-award files, whose certification flags capture City- or state-certified firms only, so measured MWBE shares are a floor on true participation.
- It sees prime-level spend only. Subcontractor participation is invisible to public data.
- It has no bid or lost-contract data, so it cannot separate a supply gap from a selection gap.
- It applies no statistical significance test and carries no anecdotal record.
- The group-by-cluster matrix assumes uniform utilization across clusters, which a full study removes.
The honest upgrade path
What the full study adds that public data cannot
This is both the limit of this portal and the work House Strategies Group would lead as the study's authors.