Pub Hith Gift 8112/74

If such findings are not to be repeated year after year, in agency after agency, it is imperative that immediate steps be taken toward vigorous enforcement of the civil rights requirements. Therefore, we urge your consideration of the facts presented and ask for your leadership in ensuring forceful implementation of the Federal civil rights program.

Respectfully,

Stephen Horn, Vice Chairman

Frankie M. Freeman

Maurice B. Mitchell

Robert S. Rankin

Manuel Ruiz, Jr.

John A. Buggs, Staff Director

The Commission is indebted to the following staff members and former
staff members who participated in the preparation of this report
under the supervision of Jeffrey M. Miller, Director, Office of Federal
Civil Rights Evaluation:

Raymundo Aleman, Grace P. Buckley, Kathleen Buto, Leonard Chapelle,
Patricia A. Cheatham, Robert E. Cook, Joseph R. Cooney, LouAnn DeVargas,
Caroline F. Davis, John E. Fleming, Richard A. Gladstone, Cynthia
N. Graae, Josephine Gonzales, Wallace Greene, Peggy Hubble,
Dennis Johnson, Maewanda L. Michael, Bruce E. Newman, Essie Orekoya,
Nadine Price, Clyde A. Prout, Franklin W. Taylor, Marvin D. Wall,
Veronica T. Washington, Dorothy P. Williamson.

THE FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS (A REASSESSMENT)

Effort

V. Federally Assisted Programs-Title VI of the Civil

STATEMENT OF THE UNITED STATES COMMISSION ON CIVIL RIGHTS ON "THE FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS ENFORCEMENT EFFORT--TWO YEARS LATER"

More than two years ago this Commission issued the first in a series of reports evaluating the structure and mechanisms of the Federal civil rights enforcement effort. We undertook these studies because while there was an impressive array of Federal civil rights laws, Executive orders, and policies, the promise of equal justice for all Americans had not approached reality. We felt that the Federal Government was the single institution in our society possessing the legal authority, the resources, potentially, at least--the will for attacking social and economic injustice on a comprehensive scale.

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In that report, the Commission identified weaknesses in civil rights enforcement which continue to permit such grievous wrongs as segregation in our schools, discriminatory housing and employment, disproportionate hardship to minorities in urban development and highway construction, and inequitable distribution of health services

and other Federal benefits.

Today we are releasing a third follow-up report, which was submitted last September to the Office of Management and Budget for its use in reviewing budget submissions of the Federal agencies. Our basic conclusion is that the Federal effort is highly inadequate; that it has not improved as much as we would have expected since our last report in November 1971;