Department of Justice Rule Restores Equal Protection for All in Civil Rights Enforcement

Today, the Justice Department issued a final rule updating its regulations under Title VI of the Civil Rights of 1964. This rule ensures that our nation’s federal civil rights laws are firmly grounded in the principle of equal treatment under the law by eliminating disparate-impact liability from its Title VI regulations.

“For decades, the Justice Department has used disparate-impact liability to undermine the constitutional principle that all Americans must be treated equally under the law,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. “No longer. This Department of Justice is eliminating its regulations that for far too long required recipients of federal funding to make decisions based on race.”

“The prior ‘disparate impact’ regulations encouraged people to file lawsuits challenging racially neutral policies, without evidence of intentional discrimination,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Our rejection of this theory will restore true equality under the law by requiring proof of actual discrimination, rather than enforcing race- or sex-based quotas or assumptions.”

“For over 50 years, the prior disparate-impact rule fostered the very thing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited — discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. But with today’s rule,” said Chief of Staff and Supervisory Official for the Office of Legal Policy Nicholas Schilling. “The Department reaffirms Congress’ commitment to measure all Americans by merit.”

Congress enacted Title VI, 42 U.S.C. § 2000d, as part of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964. It prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance. In 1973, the federal government added to the law a new rule — disparate impact — that was not part of the law. The term “disparate impact” refers to the concept of imposing liability on a federal fund recipient only because there may be different outcomes for different people, not based on prejudice or intent. That prior disparate-impact rule was already enjoined in one state, prohibiting DOJ from enforcing it there.

The Department’s new rule reflects the best reading of Title VI, as the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized for over twenty years. Title VI has and will continue to prohibit intentional discrimination. The Department’s new rule ensures that recipients of federal funding will be judged on their actual conduct, not on statistical outcomes or circumstances beyond their control.

Despite decades of case law, the Department’s prior Title VI disparate-impact regulations remained on the books, sowing confusion and creating costly compliance obligations for states, local governments, nonprofits, and private organizations receiving federal financial assistance. This new rule eliminates these burdens, promotes consistent enforcement across agencies, and restores public confidence in civil rights law by aligning the Department’s regulations with the Constitution.