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Volume 3, Number 1
SECRETARY OF EDUCATION BENNETT CLAIMS STATES HAVE MADE SUBSTANTIAL PROGRESS IN DESEGREGATING HIGHER EDUCATION
On February 10, 1988 Secretary of Education William Bennett held a press conference to announce that the Department of Education had "completed its [long-awaited] review of efforts by ten states to desegregate their systems of public higher education" and had determined "that [the] ten states have made substantial progress in desegregating their systems of higher education in accordance with binding desegregation plans previously signed with the Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR)." The Secretary announced that four of the states - Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia - were in compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and no further desegregation measures will be required by OCR. The other six states - Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Virginia were "found in partial violation of Title VI for failure to implement one or more specified desegregation measures to which they had previously agreed." The states have 90 days to submit assurances that they will implement the measures by December 31, 1988.
In his statement the Secretary stressed the steps that states had taken, and not the results of their actions:
"The hundreds - in some cases thousands - of specific actions taken by each state to satisfy the requirements of these plans do not mean that they have met each numerical goal or timetable the plans employ. But I should emphasize, as the Office for Civil Rights has always emphasized, that these goals and timetables are not quotas."
Legree S. Daniels, Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, who also spoke at the press conference, said:
"Although each of the ten states complied with the majority of their commitments, six states will be required to implement some measures that remain incomplete. ...[T]he Office for Civil Rights will endeavor to ensure that these commitments are fulfilled by December 31, 1988. We do not anticipate that any state will be unable to implement the remaining important measures by next December. If necessary, however, the Office for Civil Rights will move to terminate federal education funds to any program or activity receiving those funds if they do not implement the remaining measures by that time."
The Department of Education's determination that four of the states are in compliance with Title VI means that the states will not have to take any further actions to desegregate their higher education systems such as enhancement of traditionally black colleges and affirmative recruitment of minority students.
Background
OCR in the Department of Education has responsibility for enforcement of federal statutes that prohibit discrimination in all education programs and activities that receive federal funds. In 1969-1970, OCR found that a number of border and southern states were continuing to operate segregated dual higher education systems in violation of Title VI. Although the states failed to desegregate their higher education systems, OCR did not take any administrative action against the states.
  
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