Alaska contracts tagged with the anti-DEI clause go almost entirely to Native corporation firms

Federal award records show that $55,950,898 of the $58,884,069 in Alaska contract dollars tagged with a code tied to a new anti-DEI clause belongs to firms owned by Alaska Native corporations. Fifty-two tagged Alaska award records went to 38 recipients. The set keeps growing: the same search on Sept. 20 returned 59 records worth about $59.5 million. The records show the awards are tagged in USAspending descriptions that reference Executive Order 14398; the underlying contract documents have not been checked to confirm the clause language was actually inserted. Ten of those Alaska awards, worth $28,324,223, were made under set-asides keyed explicitly to Native ownership.

President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14398 on March 26, and it published in the Federal Register five days later. The order directs agencies to insert a six-part clause into contracts and every tier of subcontract. The clause bars "racially discriminatory DEI activities," which the order defines as disparate treatment by race or ethnicity in recruitment, employment, contracting, program participation or the allocation of resources. Contractors must open books, records and accounts on demand, and the clause makes compliance material to payment decisions under the False Claims Act. Noncompliance can cancel a contract and make a firm ineligible for further federal work.

"It is therefore the policy of the United States to promote economy and efficiency in Federal contracting by preventing racial discrimination," Trump wrote in the order.

The order's text never mentions the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, Alaska Native corporations, tribes, the Buy Indian Act or the Small Business Administration 8(a) program for disadvantaged small businesses. Federal law separately classifies Alaska Native corporations as minority and economically disadvantaged business enterprises, the statutory basis for the preferences the order does not address. The only qualifier on the duty to insert the clause is the phrase "to the extent permitted by law," which appears twice.

Two Native contracting bodies asked regulators to say the preferences fall outside the order. The Native American Contractors Association, which says it serves more than forty Native entity owned firms, asked agencies to state expressly that tribal, ANC and Native Hawaiian Organization preferences fall outside the order. Without clearer distinctions, it wrote, "contracting officers and prime contractors may perceive lawful Native programs, such as the SBA 8(a) Program, as prohibited DEI activities." The group also argued the demand for access to books conflicts with Alaska corporate law, since "ANCs hold proprietary shareholder information governed by ANCSA and state corporate law."

Ho-Chunk, Inc., a tribal corporation owned by Nebraska's Winnebago Tribe, filed the same week. It pointed to an SBA rule requiring an 8(a) tribally owned firm to keep a written plan for developing Tribal members' managerial skills. "Could this be misinterpreted as disparate treatment in the "allocation or deployment" of resources?" wrote Ann Marie Bledsoe Downes, the company's chief administrative officer. No exemption has been issued. The docket record contains the Native comments and no agency answer to them.

The two largest Alaska awards carrying the tag went to Goldbelt Government Services of Juneau: $12,451,802 from the Bureau of Prisons on Aug. 27 for exterior repairs at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, and $11,467,881 on Aug. 9 for an electrical upgrade at the penitentiary in Marion. Both were 8(a) sole source with one offer, one coded not available for competition, the other not competed under simplified procedures. Bering Straits Professional Services of Anchorage holds a $9,808,133 CDC laboratory upgrade and a $7,095,383 Bureau of Prisons award, both single-offer. Nineteen tagged Alaska awards, worth $43,652,065, drew a single offer. Eleven tagged awards, totaling $45,600,286, were justified as other than full and open competition, including every Alaska award over $7 million with the tag.

Tanana Commercial Company of Tanana holds four awards under the Indian Small Business Economic Enterprise set-aside, including $178,250 for environmental assessments. Koniag Professional Services took $1,311,111 from the CDC, and Tanaq Management Services $262,515.

The FAR Council, which writes federal contracting rules, published a proposed rule on Sept. 18 that would make failure to comply with the clause a cause for debarment and suspension. Comments are due Oct. 19, under FAR Case 2026-011 on regulations.gov.