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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 31, 1994
Contact: Rodger D. Murphey (202) 401-0774
In a notice published in today's Federal Register, the U.S. Department of Education reiterated that it will rely on the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Fordice when examining states' higher education desegregation efforts.
The notice reaffirms the Department's revised criteria for higher education desegregation issued in 1978, under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, including provisions that state systems of higher education may have a duty to strengthen and enhance historically black institutions.
"As part of our analysis, we will pay particular attention to any plan that proposes to close or merge historically black institutions," said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Norma Cantú. "We will scrutinize any action that might impose undue burdens on black students, faculty or administrators or diminish the unique roles and traditions of such institutions."
Cantú said the guidance is intended to indicate the standards the Department will use in determining whether six states -- Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas and Virginia -- have met their obligations to dismantle all remnants of their segregated systems of higher education. These states have implemented plans to desegregate their systems, but the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has not yet made a determination concerning their compliance with Title VI.
In Fordice the court held that to comply with Title VI, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, states may not simply adopt race-neutral policies as a remedy for correcting a previously segregated higher education system. Rather, states have an affirmative duty to eliminate all vestiges of the de jure segregated system. The court found that a wide variety of factors -- such as admission policies, program offerings, and mission statements at historically black institutions and traditionally white institutions with similar service areas -- must be examined to determine whether a state has succeeded in eliminating the vestiges of its prior segregated system. The court specifically declined to issue an exclusive list of factors to be examined; instead, states are expected to examine any policies traceable to the prior system that result in segregation and determine if they are educationally justified and if they can be eliminated.
In the 1980s, OCR determined that eight states [Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and West Virginia] had implemented their higher education desegregation plans and were in compliance with Title VI. However, Cantú said, if OCR receives information that there continues to be vestiges of the prior segregation system in these states, OCR will take "appropriate action," consistent with the Fordice decision.
Fordice was governor of Mississippi when the Justice Department filed suit to compel the state to develop and implement a desegregation plan for its higher education system. The high court remanded the case to U.S. District Court, where it is pending.