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ST. LOUIS — Mayor Cara Spencer on Friday announced plans to restart the city’s embattled minority contracting program with new rules intended to guard against legal challenges from a hostile federal government.

The new program aims to survive scrutiny by making hiring goals on city construction projects specific to each job rather than imposing uniform targets on everything from concrete work to carpentry. The mayor’s office said the approach will bring the city closer in line with U.S. Supreme Court doctrine and make the program more effective.

“I feel very confident that this is on sound legal ground,� Spencer said at a news conference.

The rollout, expected in the coming days as staff finalizes new rules, marks a turning point in the city’s response to threats from President Donald Trump’s administration to pull funding from diversity initiatives nationwide.

In late July and early August, Spencer and her lieutenants paused the city’s minority contracting program and floated a race-neutral replacement. Black aldermen, business owners and advocates balked, accusing her of abandoning a vital program and questioning her ability to lead a racially diverse city. Spencer stood her ground, warning that hundreds of millions of dollars in federal tornado aid were at risk if the city ignored the threats.

The city is still reliant on federal aid: Officials are hoping for hundreds of millions of dollars in redevelopment aid, and for the Army Corps of Engineers to lead a huge debris removal mission.

On Friday, however, Spencer said the new changes, recommended by national consultants specializing in minority contracting programs, threaded the needle.

The plan, she said, “balances the risks with the very necessary work that we need to do to make our community more equitable.�

Advocates applauded the move.

Makal Ali, of the Advancing American Business and Contractors Association, cast the mayor as a fighter in the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. “She stood on what was right,� he said, “and we’re going to back her.�

Aldermanic President Megan Green said she thought the previous program was legal, and the pause probably wasn’t necessary. “But we got it figured out,� she said. “And most of us who were grumpy with the initial decision are happy with this one.�

But another advocate, David Jackson, said he feared the back-and-forth had put the city in federal crosshairs. Just last week, Thomas Albus, the U.S. attorney in St. Louis, wrote in a court filing that programs with “race- and sex-based presumptions� were unconstitutional.

“I just can’t see the administration not smacking St. Louis,� Jackson said. “It’s like we just played a game with them.�

Fights over steering city contract dollars to minority firms date back to the civil rights era, when activist Percy Green climbed the unfinished Gateway Arch in 1964 to protest the lack of Black workers. The city set its first formal benchmarks for construction projects in the early 1990s: 25% of the work had to go to Black and Hispanic subcontractors and 5% to companies owned by women.

From 2016–2021, minority and women-owned firms landed about a third of $1.8 billion in construction contracts. Advocates say that money goes toward building up a Black middle class.

But the Trump administration has shaken things up for such programs, directing federal agencies, colleges and local governments across the country to dismantle diversity initiatives.

In May, the Justice Department issued a memo threatening to claw back grants from entities that did not comply.

By July, the city had stopped certifying new businesses as minority- or women-owned and started work on a plan to repeal the program and replace it with a “race-neutral� initiative focused on small businesses of all stripes. And in August, Spencer announced a halt to new construction contracts while officials rewrote rules, saying that to do otherwise would risk losing tornado aid and exposing workers to arrest.

But advocates pushed back. Four Black aldermen wrote Spencer a letter tying the decision to a history of racism in the city. Contractors said they were at risk of losing millions of dollars in business, and urged the administration to hire a consultant to try to defend the program.

After a couple of meetings, the city agreed to hire the Atlanta law firm Griffin & Strong to review the city’s program and recommend defensible changes using the most recent study on minority contracting in the region, which replaced an older study that underpinned the previous program.

The consultants met with officials and advocates and developed the executive order released Friday.

Certification will restart immediately, said Otis Williams, director of the St. Louis Development Corporation. City staff can proceed with setting participation goals for construction projects as well as private developments receiving city tax incentives or other subsidies.

“It’s not rocket science,� Williams said. “It’s being done in other communities already.�

And he expressed confidence that the new approach would hold up.

“I was confident in it before,� he said. “But this provides a level of assurance.�