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Obviously, time is needed to analyze the success of Dow's program in terms of the hiring and upgrading of minorities and women. Nevertheless, we believe that the approach is positive, more comprehensive, and potentially more effective. It has been generally recognized by civil rights groups that EEO programs are most effective when the impetus for such a program comes from top management. This is the foundation of Dow's program.

We believe that efforts similar to Dow's should be encouraged as a means to eliminate administrative burdens and increase effectiveness.

Recommendation No. 13

Compliance agencies should work with individual companies to initiate their own results-oriented EEO programs as a means to further EEO and to reduce government and private administrative costs connected with EEO.

Potential for Using Technology

Existing procedures for the EEO-1 survey are paperwork intensive. That is, responding companies - regardless of size or the sophistication of automated systems - submit their annual surveys in hard copy, even when the companies' payroll/personnel systems can collect, store, process and print all needed information.

This Commission believes that companies should be given the opportunity to submit survey data on computer tapes conforming to EEOC technical and format specifications.

We recognize that tape exchange programs have certain operational problems, but we are encouraged by studies now underway in EEOC to anticipate and hopefully forestall their occurrence.

Potential benefits of tape submission are two-fold:

• Hard copy forms received by the Government will be reduced in number. As a result, Federal costs for data reduction - key punching and verification could be reduced.

• EEOC might be able to use survey data at an earlier time, and its publication schedule for aggregate statistics could be shortened.

Recommendation No. 14

EEO agencies should emphasize the use of state-of-theart techniques for data collection and processing, such as allowing the use of computer tapes, to decrease the burden on companies and increase agencies' capabilities for processing information.

State and Local Government
EEO Reporting Problems

The growth in State and local EEO reporting requirements has resulted from the increased requirements the Federal Government has placed on States and localities in assuring nondiscrimination in their employment practices and in their administration and utilization of Federal funds. This was a gradual movement accompanied by a proliferation of EEO oriented laws and the subsequent delegation of responsibility for State and local EEO compliance to a variety of Federal agencies. In this section we discuss Federal information demands placed on States, the concept of a lead Federal agency to coordinate State and local EEO reporting, regional uniform guidelines for affirmative action, technical assistance, and rules for Executive Order 11764.

Confusion Resulting From Multiple Requirements

When States and localities have to deal with more than one Federal agency in the course of conducting their affairs, the array of EEO reporting requirements constitutes a significant reporting burden. This burden is increased when, in addition to fragmented Federal administration, there is no uniform Federal policy as to the application or requirements of the same Federal law. An example of this is Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, relating to nondiscrimination in Federal financial assistance programs and its impact on EEO compliance requirements.

Title VI was passed to insure equal opportunity in the receipt of benefits rather than equal employment opportunity, e.g., that States receiving Federal funds would not discriminate against children or other groups participating in a program (such as a community recreation project), as opposed to assuring that a State's employees would not be discriminated against. Employment is covered by Title VII the Civil Rights Act.

Section 604 limited the employment coverage of the Act in the following manner:

Sec. 604 [of Title VI] Nothing contained in this title shall be construed to authorize action under this title by any department or agency with respect to any employment practice of any employer, employment agency, or labor organization except where a primary objective of the Federal financial assistance is to provide employment. (emphasis supplied)

Title VI covers twenty-five Federal agencies administering 400 State and local government assistance programs. Seven months after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Johnson issued Executive Order 11197, which established the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity to coordinate agency regulations and requirements. This council was chaired by the Vice President and was composed of sixteen agency heads.' Among the Committee's assigned duties was the coordination of the Government's Title VI efforts. After only six months the Committee was abolished, and the responsibility for coordination of Title VI delegated to the Attorney General under Executive Order 11247. "The responsibility was to assist Federal departments and agencies to coordinate their programs and activities and adopt uniform policies, practices, and procedures for the enforcement of Title VI." The order did little actually to coordinate Title VI programs in that "the Attorney General did not construe the order as providing authority to direct the agencies to take specific compliance and enforcement actions."3

Due to difficulties in implementing Executive Order 11247, President Nixon issued Executive Order 11764 in early 1974. This order states that the Attorney General "shall coordinate❞ agency enforcement of Title VI. The previous executive order directed only that he "assist." After two years, the Department of Justice, on July 29, 1976, published the proposed rules for Executive Order 11764 in the Federal Register.

Since 1964, agencies have interpreted the exception clause in Section 604 in different ways. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency explained its interpretation of the exception clause in correspondence with the Civil Service Commission:

In accordance with this restriction, EPA presently has no authority to investigate the employment practices of the employer, i.e., municipality borough, county, township, etc., which is the grant recipient. Under Title VI, however, we have and do exercise the authority to determine if the proposed construction will fairly and equally serve all segments of the

'The Federal Civil Rights Enforcement Effort 1974, Volume VI, "To Extend Federal Financial Assistance," United States Commission on Civil Rights, Nov. 1975, p. 650.

community. EPA's current scope of EEO investigative/contract compliance authority is restricted to contractors who are hired and paid by the grantee and, in that capacity, indirectly receive and profit from Federal funds.

Proposed changes to existing regulations have been announced in the Federal Register and, if fully approved, would broaden our present scope and authority to include the grantee and, apparently, the consulting engineering firms which, like the contractors, indirectly receive and profit from Federal funds.

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In 1974 the Commission on Civil Rights called attention to the confusion which had developed in the implementation of Title VI:

Each individual office has been left to set its own priorities. During the past few years, dedicated staff in a number of Federal agencies have tried hard to establish viable equal opportunity programs, but for the most part these efforts have floundered. Agencies have engaged in many ineffective tasks, ranging from providing technical assistance for the establishment of pro forma employee grievance procedures to drafting weak guidelines for affirmative action plans. Frequently, however, these agencies have neglected their principal duty under Title VI which is to ensure nondiscrimination in the services offered by the programs they fund. They must focus upon more than simply their recipients' employment practices as important as that subject is. Moreover, in the area of employment agencies often create their own standards and ignore the legal principles established by Federal agencies with primary responsibility for equal employment opportunity. The report pointed out the differing requirements of agencies. The Department of Agriculture required that affirmative action plans be formulated for all State extension services programs; the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) relied on racial and sex data collection, compliance reviews, and complaints investigation; the Department of Interior utilized preaward reviews, post award reviews, and racial and ethnic data collection; the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) still requires that grantees with more than 50 employees formulate an Equal Employment Opportunity Plan (EEOP).

The Civil Service Commission termed the interpretation of Title VI as it relates to employment as being "muddy". The Southwest Federal Regional Council, comprised of regional administrators from 9 agencies and departments, developed uniform guidelines for AAP's. (As discussed later in this chapter, we endorse the guidelines for the plans themselves.) However, as shown in Figure 11, the first page of their text refers to title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as a prime authority for equal employment opportunity. In the reference section of the guidelines-at the very end of the volume-Section 604, the restrictive section, is cited. However, no attempt is made to determine the applicability.