[Analytical Perspectives]
[Federal Borrowing and Debt]
[12. Federal Borrowing and Debt]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
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12. CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT FUNDING
Federal civil rights enforcement agencies are responsible for
strengthening Federal guarantees of equal opportunity and enforcing our
laws against discrimination. To eliminate discrimination requires both a
proactive effort to promote equal opportunity and effective mechanisms
for enforcement. Adequate funding is essential to meaningful enforcement
of legal protections afforded all Americans. The 1999 Budget provides
the resources necessary to support vigorous enforcement of those Federal
civil rights laws.
Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed 34 years ago, numerous
Federal laws have been put in place that prohibit discrimination in the
areas of housing, employment, educational opportunities, public
accommodations, voting, and programs receiving Federal financial
assistance. Nevertheless, discrimination remains a real and widespread
problem. For example, recent cases provide evidence of the breadth of
the employment discrimination problem. These cases revealed companies
that race-coded their job applications and segregated minorities into
low profile and low paying jobs. Other companies terminated workers
because of age or disability, without offering reasonable
accommodations. Patterns of gender discrimination or of sexual
harassment are similarly egregious examples of the need for vigorous
enforcement of employment discrimination laws.
Housing discrimination also remains pervasive and real. Recent testing
in the Washington, D.C. area housing markets showed that blacks and
Hispanics faced substantial discrimination when they tried to buy or
rent a home. The studies showed that blacks and Hispanics were
discriminated against 36 percent of the time they tried to buy a home,
and 42 percent of the time they tried to rent a home. These results are
disturbing and unacceptable 30 years after the passage of the Fair
Housing Act of 1968. Housing discrimination not only affects a family's
economic well-being, but it is frequently the cause of other forms of
disadvantage, such as limited job opportunities and increased
segregation in schools.
The problems of discrimination are not limited to issues of employment
or housing. The proportion of complaints based on disability continues
to exceed 50 percent of all educational discrimination complaints
received by the Department of Education. Furthermore, over 5,000
investigations annually reflect that the problem of fighting
discrimination in our schools remains an important national issue.
As real and pervasive as illegal discrimination appears to be,
changing demographic patterns and an American population that is growing
increasingly diverse will require even more vigilance in preventing
discrimination and enforcing civil rights laws against discrimination. A
renewed commitment to strong and effective enforcement will help ensure
that economic opportunities and progress reach all segments of a diverse
American population. For Federal civil rights enforcement agencies, in
addition to increased resources, this renewed commitment includes:
Greater emphasis on prevention and non-litigation remedies
to achieve the objectives of Federal civil rights laws;
Use of additional tools to increase compliance, including
the expansion of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
programs;
Increased use of technology for better management of agency
resources and tracking of caseloads;
Improved statistical methods for measurement and analysis;
Encouraging the role of the States through increased
partnerships in addressing the problems of discrimination; and
Enhanced coordination by the Department of Justice in
addressing Federal civil rights enforcement efforts.
The 1999 Budget proposes $602 million for civil rights enforcement
agencies, $86 million or 17 percent greater than the 1998 enacted level
of $516 million, as shown in Table 12-1. Programs and issues in the
principal civil rights enforcement agencies, and the U.S. Commission on
Civil Rights, are discussed below.
Enforcing Civil Rights Laws in Employment
The exclusion of people from employment opportunities remains a
significant problem facing the workforce today. Approximately 80,000
complaints of employment discrimination are filed annually with the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Increased statutory
responsibilities, including the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
and the Civil Rights Act of 1991, have increased the number of
complaints that are brought each year. Currently, over 20 percent of all
complaints brought before the EEOC are based on disability, while Title
VII complaints, based on race, color, religion, gender and national
origin, total 60 percent of all complaints filed. An additional 60,000
discrimination complaints are also filed with State Fair Employment
Practices Agencies. Moreover, increased awareness of and attention to
employment-based discrimination significantly affects the filing of
charges with the EEOC.
The EEOC is charged with promoting equal opportunity through
administrative and judicial enforcement of Federal civil rights laws and
through education and technical assistance. Established by Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the EEOC enforces the prin
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Table 12-1. CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT FUNDING
(Budget authority, in millions of dollars) \1\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Estimate
1997 -----------------------
Actual 1998 1999
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission..................................... 240 242 279
Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fair Housing Activities........ 30 30 52
Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division................................ 62 65 72
Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs......... 59 62 68
Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights............................ 55 62 68
Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Civil Rights \2\......... 20 20 21
Department of Agriculture, Civil Rights Programs............................ 10 15 19
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights............................................. 9 9 11
Department of Transportation, Office of Civil Rights........................ 6 6 7
Department of Labor, Civil Rights Center.................................... 5 5 5
===================================
Total..................................................................... 496 516 602
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\1\ Numbers may not add due to rounding.
\2\ Includes Medicare Trust Fund transfers.
cipal Federal statutes prohibiting employment discrimination, including:
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as amended; the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) of 1967 as amended; the Equal
Pay Act (EPA) of 1963; Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of
1990 (ADA); and Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as
amended. Taken as a whole, these laws protect workers from
discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, national origin,
age, and disability.
In recent years, Congress provided EEOC with only marginal increases
that have been insufficient to support upgrades to technology and
investment in alternative methods of enforcing the law. At the same
time, increased enforcement responsibilities have resulted in a 47
percent rise in private sector complaints received by the agency during
the first half of the decade, from 62,000 in 1990 to 91,000 in 1994.
Consequently, the backlog of private sector complaints at the EEOC rose
from 73,124 charges at the end of 1993 (the highest level of the
previous 10 years), to an all-time high of 111,000 in 1995.
Over the past three years, the EEOC has addressed Congressional
concerns about the pending backlog and the lack of alternative dispute
resolution methods by making a fundamental shift in its approach to its
business. Among the most significant changes are: the development of
national and local priority issues; the implementation of a targeted and
prioritized charge processing system for private sector cases; and
encouraging the use of settlement at all stages of processing, including
the use of mediation. Two years after implementing the priority charge
handling procedures, EEOC has reduced it charge inventory 40 percent--
from 111,000 pending charges at the end of the third quarter of 1995
(just prior to implementation) to 64,000 pending charges at the end of
1997. However, under EEOC's new charge prioritization system, it is now
faced with a more complex caseload that is approximately 70 percent
category ``B'' charges (those with potential merit requiring extensive
investigation). Without additional resources to continue procedural
reforms, implement greater use of mediation, and invest in technology,
the Commission is unlikely to make further progress toward its goal of
reducing the average time it takes to resolve private sector complaints
from over 9.4 months to 6 months by the end of 2000.
Finally, the budget proposes $13 million for an enhanced mediation
program that would double the number of complaints eligible for EEOC's
alternative dispute resolution program in 1999. Voluntary mediation is
an effective method of complaint resolution that can be used in
enforcement efforts. EEOC currently uses some of its trained
investigators to mediate, but this diverts scarce investigative
resources from cases that do not lend themselves to mediation. While
volunteers have also been used since the program's inception in 1996,
EEOC will need to use more experienced and credible mediators in the
future. Through the use of contract mediators, EEOC would encourage
employer participation by addressing employers' concerns about perceived
bias of EEOC staff.
Discrimination by Federal contractors is the subject of a separate
enforcement effort conducted by the Department of Labor's Office of
Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). OFCCP is responsible for
ensuring nondiscrimination in employment based on race, sex, religion,
color, national origin, disability or veteran status by more than
200,000 Federal contractors and subcontractors with a total workforce of
approximately 22 million people. It assures that Federal contractors and
subcontractors take affirmative action in hiring and the advancement of
minorities and women under the authority of Executive Orders 11246 and
11375. It also enforces the affirmative action and nondiscrimination
provisions of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and, as an agent of the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Americans With Disabilities
Act of 1990. It ensures that contractors comply with the provisions of
the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 providing
affirmative action by Federal contractors to employ, and advance in
employment, special disabled and Vietnam era veterans.
The 1999 Budget includes funds to continue OFCCP's Fair Enforcement
Initiative which began in 1998. The Fair Enforcement Initiative includes
a streamlined
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tiered compliance review process which reduces contractor burden while
enabling the agency to target the most serious violations. The tiered
review process also will enable OFCCP to reach more of the contractor
universe, resulting in a 10 percent increase in 1999 in the number of
compliance reviews conducted. In addition, through the completion of
various regulatory changes, OFCCP will reduce contractor burden by at
least 30 percent. OFCCP will modernize its computer systems in order to
streamline internal procedures permitting the agency, for example, to
accept electronically submitted reports from contractors. The Fair
Enforcement Initiative, which includes technical compliance assistance,
will increase the effectiveness and efficiency of the agency while
addressing the persistent problem of systemic discrimination in the
workplace.
The Department of Labor (DOL) also operates numerous employment and
training programs that seek to enhance the skills and abilities of the
nation's workforce. To ensure that these programs are administered in a
non-discriminatory manner, the Civil Rights Center (CRC) at the
Department of Labor is responsible for enforcing the Federal statutes
and regulations that prohibit discrimination in all DOL financial
assistance programs and prohibit discrimination on the basis of
disability by certain public entities and in activities conducted by
DOL. CRC employs a proactive approach towards reducing discrimination,
by promoting voluntary compliance with existing non-discrimination laws
through education and technical assistance to mitigate the number of
complaint filings. To further reduce complaint workload, CRC plans to
expand the number of technical assistance visits made to the States to
ensure voluntary compliance. The CRC also intends to encourage the
States to promote the use of alternative dispute resolution in complaint
processing programs at the state level. Methods of Administration (MOA)
agreements which are signed by the States as a condition of receiving
employment and training funds have also been an effective tool in
assisting States in addressing discrimination by ensuring that uniform
systems are in place to enforce applicable nondiscrimination laws.
Combating Housing Discrimination and Promoting Fair Housing Activities
Despite 30 years of laws and regulations prohibiting housing
discrimination, fair housing audits continue to show high indices of
discrimination, and mortgage lenders reject minority applicants at
higher rates than white applicants. Builders continue to construct
housing inaccessible to disabled persons in violation of the Fair
Housing Act.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), along with the
Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice, has overall
responsibility for the promotion of fair housing and enforcement of the
Fair Housing Act of 1968, as amended, which prohibits discrimination on
the basis of race, color, gender, religion, national origin, disability
or familial status in the sale or rental, provision of brokerage
services, or financing of housing. The Office of Fair Housing and Equal
Opportunity (FHEO) administers two grant programs: the Fair Housing
Assistance Program (FHAP), which provides financial assistance to
supplement enforcement activities of States and localities which have
passed laws substantially equivalent to Federal fair housing laws; and
the Fair Housing Initiatives Program (FHIP), which is a competitive
grant program that provides funding to private fair housing groups to
carry out activities that assist in enforcement and furthering
compliance with the Fair Housing Act. These fair housing activities are
designed to ensure citizens the freedom and dignity of choosing where to
live.
At the State and local government level, agencies with laws equivalent
to the Federal Fair Housing Act are estimated to increase from 78 in
1997 to 85 in 1999. 1999 funding for the FHAP program is proposed at $23
million, an $8 million increase over the 1998 level, to support
additional State and local fair housing organizations that will meet the
needs of currently underserved populations and will be used for joint
investigations and enforcement activities.
The 1999 Budget also proposes $10 million for a targeted, audit-based
enforcement initiative that would raise the Nation's and communities'
awareness of the extent of discrimination through focused and publicly
released audit results and subsequent enforcement actions. Paired
testing, in which otherwise identical white and minority testers
approach realtors or landlords, is a particularly effective method of
detecting housing discrimination. This initiative provides for non-
profit housing organizations to undertake audit-based fair housing
enforcement in 20 areas nationwide to develop local indices of
discrimination, to identify and pursue violations of fair housing laws,
and to promote new community fair housing enforcement initiatives. The
Administration believes that this systematic and focused strategy,
replicated across the country, could substantially aid in detecting and
reducing levels of housing discrimination. The 1999 budget also includes
a $4 million increase in flexible funding for fair housing initiatives,
to strengthen Secretary Cuomo's ``One America'' initiative, including
his pledge to double the number of enforcement actions taken by HUD on
discrimination complaints. In total, the 1999 Budget proposes $52
million for fair housing activities to enable HUD to meet its goals of
reducing discrimination and ensuring equal opportunity in housing.
Enforcing Civil Rights in Education and Health Programs
Although much progress fighting discrimination in our schools has been
made in the past three decades, the reality of discrimination--sometimes
flagrant--remains. Investigations of over 5,000 cases annually by the
Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights reveal that
discriminatory tracking and assessment practices continue, to the
detriment of hundreds of thousands of minority, limited English
proficient, dis
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abled, and female students. Additionally, instances of racial and sexual
harassment continue as pervasive problems that must be addressed.
The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the Department of Education is
charged with ensuring equal access to education and promoting
educational excellence throughout the Nation through vigorous
enforcement of civil rights laws and regulations. These laws are: Title
VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (prohibiting race, color and national
origin discrimination); Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972
(prohibiting sex discrimination); Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act
of 1972 (prohibiting disability discrimination); Age Discrimination Act
of 1975); and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
(prohibiting disability discrimination in State and local government
services). Also, OCR enforces civil rights provisions in Title V, Part
A, of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (the Magnet Schools
Assistance program), and provides technical assistance to Federal award
recipients and beneficiaries, the public and other organizations in an
attempt to obtain voluntary compliance with civil rights laws.
OCR focuses on a range of issues: discrimination against minorities in
special education and remedial courses; discrimination against
minorities in math and science and other advanced placement courses;
disability discrimination; access to programs for limited English
proficient (LEP) students; racial and sexual harassment; discrimination
in the use of tests and assessments; discrimination in higher education
admissions and the appropriate use of affirmative action; gender equity
in athletics; and higher education and elementary and secondary school
desegregation. On average, OCR receives and resolves over 5,000
discrimination complaints annually with over 50 percent relating to
claims of disability discrimination. In addition, OCR devotes over 40
percent of its resources to proactive compliance reviews of technical
assistance efforts. OCR selects its compliance reviews based on field
assessments (from its 12 enforcement offices) of the greatest problems
of unredressed discrimination. Currently, the greatest percentage of
compliance reviews are in the area of race discrimination.
With its increased funding levels in 1998, OCR will hire additional
attorneys, reducing its current attorney/case ratio in order to improve
the effectiveness and efficiency of its complaint resolutions and its
compliance reviews and to expand its technical assistance efforts. OCR's
1999 budget, an increase of $6.5 million over 1998, will enable it to
maintain its increased staffing level, as well as to fund technology
improvements and complete the Elementary and Secondary Education School
Survey. It will also allow OCR to pursue its goal of building
collaborative relationships with parents, students, and educators--
focusing on preventing discrimination rather than just remedying it--and
building partnerships with States to address statewide compliance with
civil rights laws and regulations. A key element of its enforcement
strategy involves educating the public about its rights and
responsibilities and creating linkages among recipients, beneficiaries,
and community groups for the purpose of achieving the shared goal of
civil rights compliance. For example, OCR has invested significant time
and effort to include parental involvement in monitoring agreements
reached with recipients. These approaches require a significant
investment in time and resources to provide the necessary technical
assistance.
Federal health care and social services programs are the
responsibility of the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of
Civil Rights (OCR). The OCR enforces compliance with Civil Rights
statutes to ensure that people have equal access to and do not face
discrimination in HHS programs, particularly in the areas of managed
care, quality of health care, interethnic adoption, services to limited
English proficient persons, and welfare reform. OCR investigates
complaints, undertakes pre- and post-grant reviews, and provides
outreach and technical assistance. The Civil Rights statutes OCR
enforces include Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504
of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975,
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, Title VI and
XVI of the Public Health Service Act, parts of the Omnibus
Reconciliation Act of 1981 related to non-discrimination within block
grant programs, the Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994, and the Small
Business Protection Act of 1996 (interethnic adoption provisions).
Over the past few years, HHS' OCR has focused more of its resources on
non-complaint activities and increased use of alternative methods to
resolve complaints faster. With additional funding in 1999, OCR will
undertake an increased number of compliance reviews in priority program
areas to ensure that discrimination is not occurring within HHS-funded
programs and provide more technical assistance and outreach.
Government-wide Civil Rights Enforcement and Other Monitoring
The Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, serves as the chief
civil rights enforcement agency of the Federal government. It has
primary responsibility for Federal civil rights litigation and is
charged with coordinating Federal civil rights policy. The Division
enforces a number of laws providing civil and criminal protections from
discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender, national
origin, disability, age, familial status, citizenship status, marital
status, and source of income, in such areas as employment, voting,
education, public accommodations, housing, lending, and programs
receiving Federal assistance.
The Attorney General has delegated to the Civil Rights Division
primary litigation authority for enforcement of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Fair Housing Act, the Equal
Credit Opportunity Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Freedom
of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, and a number of criminal and civil
statutes, including laws prohibiting police misconduct. The Division
also en
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forces Federal constitutional and statutory rights in institutions
covered by the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act. The
Division has instituted a successful mediation program in its Disability
Rights Section (one area where the Division handles initial complaints,
rather than referrals from other government agencies).
The increased funding proposed in the 1999 Budget will allow the Civil
Rights Division to significantly expand investigations and prosecutions
of hate crimes and police brutality and misconduct, including pattern
and practice cases, as well as violations of the Americans with
Disabilities Act. The Budget includes a $1 million increase to enhance
the Division's coordination of Federal civil rights enforcement, and
$1.5 million for improvements in information technology, trial
preparation, and courtroom presentations.
Finally, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has a broad ranging
mandate to monitor and report on the status of civil rights' protections
in the United States. As an independent, bipartisan agency of the
Federal Government, the Commission strives to keep the President, the
Congress, and the public informed about civil rights issues that deserve
concentrated attention, and to appraise Federal laws and policies with
respect to discrimination or denial of protection of the laws because of
race, color, religion, gender, age, disability, or national origin, or
in the administration of justice. In doing so, it continually reminds
all Americans why vigorous civil rights enforcement is in our national
interest.
To meet these responsibilities, the agency evaluates Federal civil
rights enforcement programs; investigates and studies allegations of
discrimination; maintains a network of regional offices and State
Advisory Committees that give the Commission a local presence in
communities across the country; and educates the public about civil
rights. The additional resources being requested for 1999 will allow the
Commission on Civil Rights to address more fully today's critical, and
still evolving, civil rights problems, including police brutality, hate
crimes, and disability rights issues. At the same time, the Commission
has taken important steps toward improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of its operations. These improvements will help to ensure
that the 1999 resources are more effective in advancing civil rights in
the United States.
Finally, civil rights programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) are responsible for ensuring that all USDA customers and
employees are treated fairly and equitably, with dignity and respect.
The 1999 Budget increases funding for USDA centrally funded civil rights
programs from $15 million to $19 million. Funding above 1998 has been
added to human resources management, outreach to under-represented
customers, increased involvement of small and disadvantaged businesses
in USDA programs, conflict resolution activities, and in the processing
and adjudication of complaints brought by customers and employees. USDA
will continue to reduce the backlog of civil rights complaints with a
goal of reducing the average time it takes to resolve complaints, from
the current estimate of over one year, to within 180 days.