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Volume 2 Number 4 DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FAILS TO ENFORCE DESEGREGATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department of Education has been accused of foot dragging, defiance and deception in enforcement of the Nation's civil rights laws. In hearings before the House Subcommittee on Human Resources and Intergovernmental Relations, witnesses testified about OCR's failure to require states to eliminate their dual segregated systems of higher education, and about lax enforcement of Title IX (sex discrimination). The Office is in such disarray that employees have admitted to backdating of documents to conceal failure to meet court ordered timeframes for handling discrimination complaints.
Background
OCR has responsibility for enforcement of federal statutes that prohibit discrimination in all education programs and activities that receive federal funds: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (race), Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (sex), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (handicap), and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975.
OCR investigates charges of discrimination when individuals or groups file complaints with the Department. OCR also initiates compliance reviews based upon information gained from surveys OCR conducts. Since 1966 OCR has collected public school enrollment data by race, and more recently by sex, disability and English language proficiency.
In 1970 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund filed suit against the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (now the Department of Education) to compel the Department to enforce Title VI in the southern and border states and require desegregation of public schools on all levels, Adams v. Richardson. In 1974, a similar case was filed, WEAL v. Weinberger to compel enforcement of Title IX beginning with promulgation of regulations.
The Adams Case
The District Court held in 1973 that "continuation of HEW financial assistance to segregated systems of higher education in the ten States violate[d] the rights of plaintiffs and others similarly situated protected by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.11 In the decade following the filing of the Adams case most of the de jure public school districts in the South were desegregated. However, the higher education component of Adams "has been a series of disappointments and evasions ... " (See testimony of Julius L. Chambers, Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund). Elliott C. Lichtman, counsel for the plaintiffs in the Adams case testified that the reasons the suit was brought in 1970 unfortunately still characterize OCR's enforcement efforts today. OCR continues to refuse "to decide compliance issues or ha[s] delayed those decisions for protracted periods of time..." and has refused "to commence enforcement proceedings against state systems of higher education despite the clearest evidence of Title VI noncompliance by the states." This persists despite numerous judicial decrees requiring OCR to enforce Title VI in the higher education area and establishing specific timeframes. and procedures for the enforcement of Title VI, as well as OCR's own findings that the states have not eliminated the vestiges of segregation after three cycles of plans from the states committing themselves to desegregation of the systems.
The latest data from the states clearly document that they have not met their obligations to desegregate their higher education institutions. OCR, however, continues to drag its feet and rather than finding the states in noncompliance and initiating enforcement proceedings, has begun another review process. OCR prepared "summaries" of the states' efforts to desegregate their dual systems and disseminated them for public comment. Comments were due to OCR by June 8, 1987 and a letter of April 22, 1987 from Alicia Coro, Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights to staff of the CIVIL RIGHTS MONITOR states: "After the comment period, which ends June 8, OCR will determine whether a State is in compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and advise each State what further action is required." Gloria Wilkinson, Special Assistant to the Acting Assistant Secretary, in a telephone interview with MONITOR staff indicated that the office is in-the process of reviewing the comments from the states and a few citizens, and should have completed this process by mid August at which time the Office will issue a statement indicating whether the states are in compliance.
Elliott Lichtman in testimony before the Subcommittee reasoned that this was yet another delaying tactic:
OCR.. refuses to make this evaluation of whether the states have carried out their goals and commitments under their ... plans... More than one year has now passed since OCR received the fall of 1985 student and faculty data central to this decision. After holding these data and the on-site institutional reports over all of this time, OCR has now decided not to decide. Instead, it has issued "factual summaries" to the states and to the public calling for comments within 60 days, without deciding whether the states have met their plan commitments and whether the states are in compliance with Title VI. These 1987 summaries are primarily drawn from information supplied by the states themselves. What reason can there be for this unprecedented 60-day comment period except to give OCR a mechanism for further delay? Moreover, in addition to giving OCR a mechanism for additional delay, the "comment" device will provide each of the states with a wholly unnecessary opportunity to submit self-serving protestations which will attempt to rationalize their continuing failure to carry out their commitments. After three cycles of plans over 13 years - each time entailing formulation, submission and negotiation of the plan, a period for implementation and massive failure to achieve desegregation - it is time for OCR to bite the bullet: find the states out of compliance and commence formal enforcement proceedings against them.
  
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