Civil Rights at School: Agency Enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. CRS Report R45665, Version 5

Congressional Research Service. Web site: https://crsreports.congress.gov/

N

27

Policymakers

Civil Rights Legislation; Federal Legislation; Racial Discrimination; Financial Support; Federal Aid; Grants; Public Schools; United States History; Equal Education; Civil Rights; Law Enforcement; Court Litigation

Civil Rights Act 1964 Title VI; Lau v Nichols; Bakke v Regents of University of California

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits federally funded programs, activities, and institutions from discriminating based on race, color, or national origin. In its current form, Title VI remains largely unchanged since its adoption. Unlike the Civil Rights Act's better known and more heavily litigated provisions, Title VI is concerned specifically with the use of "public funds," designed to ensure that federal dollars not be "spent in any fashion which encourages, entrenches, subsidizes, or results in racial discrimination." And to fulfill that broad mandate, Title VI takes a distinctive approach to policing discrimination by making the promise of nondiscrimination a condition of the federal government's financial support. Title VI consequently prohibits all federally funded programs, activities, and institutions from discriminating based on race, color, or national origin. Although that prohibition accompanies nearly all grants and contracts awarded by the federal government, much of Title VI's doctrine has been shaped by its use in the public schools. That doctrinal story has accordingly centered on one agency in particular: the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the U.S. Department of Education (ED). As this report explains, Title VI continues to play a central part in OCR's mission of protecting civil rights on campuses at all educational levels, and in institutions both public and private. This report begins by briefly tracing Title VI to its historical and conceptual roots in the federal spending power, and explains how the early understanding of that power shaped the various legislative proposals that ultimately became Title VI. The report then examines the central doctrinal question behind the statute: what exactly Title VI outlawed by prohibiting "discrimination" among federally funded programs, and what agencies are therefore allowed to do in order to enforce that prohibition. The report then turns to ED's OCR, briefly reviewing how that agency goes about the day-to-day work of enforcing Title VI in schools, and concludes by surveying two recent developments related to Title VI, along with some considerations should Congress wish to revisit this landmark civil rights law.

ERIC

2019

ED597849