Rescinding Guidelines for Eliminating Discrimination and Denial of Services on the Basis of Race, Color, National Origin, Sex, and Handicap in Vocational Education Programs

The Secretary of Education rescinds the U.S. Department of Education's (Department) Guidelines for Eliminating Discrimination and Denial of Services on the Basis of Race, Color, National Origin, Sex, and Handicap in Vocational Education Programs (Guidelines). The Guidelines, first published in the Federal Register in 1979 and added to the Title VI regulations of the Department's predecessor, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW), apply to recipients of Federal financial assistance, including State education agencies, that offer or administer vocational education or training programs. Following the establishment of the Department and HEW's successor, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Guidelines were transferred to both agencies and have remained substantively unchanged since they were first issued in 1979. The Department has determined that the Guidelines are no longer necessary due to significant changes in governing jurisprudence on what constitutes actionable discrimination and in the vocational education landscape in the intervening half-century. The Department further finds the Guidelines to be burdensome (because they create proactive compliance requirements that do not apply to other programs that receive Federal financial assistance from the Department) and unnecessary (given the Department's existing regulations promulgated under various civil rights statutes). After considering the regulatory burden that the compliance monitoring and reporting structure outlined in section II.B. of the Guidelines imposes on State education agencies, local education agencies, and institutions of higher education, and the staffing resources that the Department expends on oversight of this compliance structure, the Department has concluded that the costs of this compliance structure no longer justify its benefits. Accordingly, the Department rescinds the Guidelines. This action does not affect the obligations of recipients of Federal financial assistance to comply with Federal civil rights laws because the regulations articulating those substantive obligations remain unchanged.