Law and Compliance

Federal Law

Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964

42 U.S.C.A. § 2000 et seq. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a historic bill that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Title VI of the Act states, “No person shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal Financial assistance.”

Programs and activities that receive Federal financial assistance from the United States Department of Education are covered by Title VI. The United States Department of Education maintains an Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement of civil rights.

As a result, schools that receive federal monies, including but not limited to Title I and Title III, must ensure that language and national origin minority students are not prohibited from accessing academic standards, curriculum, and content due to linguistic and cultural differences.

For assistance related to civil rights, you may contact the OCR headquarters office in Washington D.C. or the OCR enforcement office serving your state or territory. Contact the enforcement offices to file a complaint or to obtain technical assistance on a problem or assistance to prevent civil rights problems. Contact the OCR headquarters office if you have a question on national policy, to make a Freedom of Information request for information that is national in scope, or to request publications or other assistance that is not available online.

1970 OCR Memo

The purpose of this memorandum was to clarify the responsibility of school districts to provide equal educational opportunity to national origin minority group children deficient in English language skills. It requires districts to take affirmative steps to rectify the language deficiency in order to provide access to instructional programs for these students. As a result, schools must not deny language or national origin minority students access to rigorous and college preparatory courses and must move them to all English mainstream courses as soon as possible. Additionally, parents of language and national minority students must be adequately notified of school activities, including providing such information in a language other than English.

Equal Education Opportunities Act of 1974

20 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq. In 1974, Congress passed the Equal Educational Opportunities Act (EEOA). This Act was enacted to protect the rights of all children to have equal educational opportunities. It required that school districts establish language programs and eliminate language barriers in schools. "No state shall deny equal educational opportunity to an individual on account of his or her race, color, sex or national origin, by the failure of an educational agency to take appropriate action to overcome language barriers that impede equal participation by its students in its instructional programs."

As a result of this act, schools are required, for example, to provide student handbooks, all school policies, signs, labels, parent consent forms, etc., in both English and in the preferred mode of communication of the parents; to take action to remedy deliberate segregation such as assigning a student, other than to a school closest to his/her residence, or to remedy unintentional segregation when transferring students from one school to another, voluntarily or otherwise, if the purpose or effect of doing so would increase segregation on the basis of race, color, sex or national origin.

Pennsylvania Department of Education Basic Education Circular (BEC)