Trump administration seeking to undo decades-long rules on discrimination

‘This is a big deal,’ says Becky Monroe of the Fighting Hate and Bias programme at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

The Trump administration is pushing to reverse protections against discrimination that have been in law for decades, during its final days in the White House.

The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the US Justice Department is seeking to alter the interpretation of Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans discrimination on grounds of race, colour, or national origin by recipients of federal funding.

Under the current interpretation of the rules, an act is considered discrimination if it has a discriminatory effect on protected groups, but the proposed version would only cover actions deemed intentionally discriminatory.

Definitions of discrimination in regulations across the US government currently include an unintentional form of bias if it creates an uneven effect, alongside intentional forms of discrimination.

The change has been mulled over by the Trump administration for the past two years, but it has decided to pursue it during its final weeks in office before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated on 20 January.

A notice about the proposed change was filed last month and was shared with the Post on Tuesday. The change was pushed by former attorney general William Barr, in one of his final acts in the role before his resignation came into effect on 23 December.

The change in interpretation would “provide much needed clarity to the courts and federal funding recipients and beneficiaries,” the notice claimed.

It noted that the Justice Department currently distributes around $6bn (£4.3bn) in awards and grants to federal funding recipients, but the notice does not say how much of that would be affected by the proposed change.

The Post reported that it is not typical for changes in regulations to be published without the government first getting public comment and circulating a first draft of the proposed alterations.

However, the administration’s document claims that the proposal includes an exception that allows for its final form to be published without first seeking public comment.

Conservative politicians and activists have long argued that intent to treat someone differently should need to be proven for an action to be seen as discriminatory.

However, others have argued that finding evidence of intent is often difficult and have also claimed that institutions should be held accountable for its actions even if discrimination was not what was intended.

The planned change was criticised by Becky Monroe, who worked at the Justice Department during the Obama administration and is now the director of the Fighting Hate and Bias programme at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“The idea they would use this process at the 11th hour to undermine civil rights protections is deeply alarming though not surprising,” she told the Post on Tuesday, before adding: “This is a big deal.”

Although the planned change would affect the awarding of grants from the Justice Department, other agencies would have to publish their own similar regulations to make sure it is applied to their grants.

The Independent has asked the Justice Department for comment.