The Aporia · Today in Supreme Court History: September 6, 1983

Today in Supreme Court History: September 6, 1983

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Blackman, J. (2026, September 6). Today in Supreme Court History: September 6, 1983. Reason. https://reason.com/volokh/2026/09/06/today-in-supreme-court-history-september-6-1983-7/

Dated when The Aporia collected the article, usually within hours of publication. Check the original for its exact date and byline.

Quick Summary

On September 6, 1983, the city of Richmond solicited bids to install plumbing fixtures at its jail and denied a bid from the J.A. Croson Company due to not meeting a minority contractor set-aside requirement. This decision was later found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. case in 1989, but no specific ruling or details on this particular incident are provided in the article. The key detail is that the city's action led to a significant court case.

Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-06, using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the same event (that is the story summary below).

AI analysis runs on qwen2.5:14b, locally

Story summary

On September 6, 1983, the City of Richmond solicited bids for a plumbing contract at its city jail, but The J.A. Croson Company's bid was denied because it didn't meet a requirement that set aside work for minority contractors. This decision would eventually be overturned by the Supreme Court in the case City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., which was decided in 1989.

Written for “Supreme Court Decision” on 2026-10-22, grounded in this article and the 0 other(s) covering the same event.

Compared with similar articles

Nothing to compare against. No article is close enough to this one for the pipeline to have linked or judged the pair.

How this article was measured signals, leaning charts, publisher record, byline, topics and claims

Signals How these are calculated →

Claims extracted

sentences that state something as happening or true

Uncertain

0 of 3 hedged ("reportedly", "may", "according to")

Leaning

not political

takes no side on a contested political question

Publisher signals

67/100

Reason's corrections and hedging, across everything collected from it. Not a measure of accuracy.

Outlets on this story

Politics

Same framing elsewhere

articles that frame the event the way this one does

Analyzed 2026-09-06 · how these are computed

How this is being covered How these are calculated →

Article leaning vs. publisher reliability

Source leaning vs. consistency

Publisher

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Running correction rate · 4 correction(s)

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Who wrote this

Josh Blackman

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Nothing else under this byline is closely related to this article, so these are simply their most recent.

All 76 articles by Josh Blackman →

Topics

City of Richmond J.A. Croson Co. The City of Richmond The J.A. Croson Company's The Supreme Court

Subjects

City of Richmond GPE · 1× J.A. Croson Co. ORG · 1× The City of Richmond GPE · 1× The J.A. Croson Company's ORG · 1× The Supreme Court ORG · 1× The Volokh PERSON · 1×

Narrative

The J.A. Croson Company's bid was denied because it did not meet the "set-aside requirement" for minority contractors.

framing: assertive · carried by 1 article(s) · first seen 2026-09-06

2026-09-06 · Reason

Today in Supreme Court History: September 6, 1983 · assertive framing

Claims (3 extracted, 0 hedged)

The City of Richmond solicited bids for installing plumbing fixtures at the city jail. asserted

City → solicit → jail

The J.A. Croson Company's bid was denied because it did not meet the "set-aside requirement" for minority contractors. asserted

it → deny → contractors

The Supreme Court declared this decision unconstitutional in City of Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co. (1989). asserted

decision → declare → Richmond