Opinion ID: 381246
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: HEW Enforcement Before the Amendments

Text: 5 Through agreement with other executive departments, HEW assumed responsibility for Title VI enforcement with respect to most federal financial assistance to elementary, secondary and higher education and other specified health and social welfare activities. 12 Between the passage of the Act and March of 1970, HEW diligently followed rules 13 it promulgated under Title VI and brought some six hundred administrative proceedings against noncomplying districts. 14 Then, between March 1970 and February 1971, HEW brought no enforcement proceedings. At the same time, HEW continued to advance federal funds to schools HEW found in violation of Title VI. 15 6 Based on factual findings of this sort, Judge Pratt in Adams v. Richardson 16 and Judge Sirica in the earlier proceedings in this case 17 ordered declaratory and injunctive relief requiring HEW to resume enforcement under Title VI. Those decisions disapproved of HEW's conduct but left its regulations in place to guide future enforcement. 18 Under these regulations, HEW requires elementary and secondary school applicants and recipients to provide assurances of their compliance with desegregation plans. 19 HEW can investigate actual compliance on its own initiative; it must investigate private complaints about noncompliance. 20 Upon finding apparent violation of the assured compliance, HEW must notify the recipient and seek voluntary compliance. 21 If voluntary compliance cannot be secured, HEW can pursue enforcement through fund termination proceedings within the agency, 22 or through other means under law. 23 The regulations specify the primary alternative to fund-termination: referral to the Department of Justice with a recommendation of appropriate legal action. 24 Reflecting the regulations' emphasis on voluntary compliance, HEW informally resolved findings of noncompliance in nearly all cases between 1972 and 1978: funds were actually terminated in only one instance. 25 7