Title Vi Non-Discrimination Plan: Fill & Download for Free

Why aren’t there more black developers?I think a lot of this has to do with what part of the country you live in (assuming the OP is in America)For instance, the number of Black software engineers that I encounter in Atlanta, GA has dramatically increased during the course of my almost 20 years in the field.Now, I have worked at a few companies where almost half of the developers were Black. Of course, I have worked at many more companies were I was the sole Black developer. But still… I’m seeing progress.But to answer the question more directly, one of the things that we have to remember is that American schools weren’t desegregated until 1964. But of course, that was just a law that was passed. It took many many years for this to happen in actuality.Consider this timeline for a moment1963 62% of Americans — 73% of Northerners and 31% of Southerners — believe Blacks and Whites should attend the same schools.Two African American students, Vivian Malone and James A. Hood, successfully register at the University of Alabama despite George Wallace's "stand in the schoolhouse door" — but only after President Kennedy federalizes the Alabama National Guard.For the first time, a small number of black students in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Mississippi attend public elementary and secondary schools with white students.1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is adopted. Title IV of the Act authorizes the federal government to file school desegregation cases. Title VI of the Act prohibits discrimination in programs and activities, including schools, receiving federal financial assistance.The Rev. Bruce Klunder is killed protesting the construction of a new segregated school in Cleveland, Ohio.1968 The Supreme Court orders states to dismantle segregated school systems "root and branch." The Court identifies five factors — facilities, staff, faculty, extracurricular activities and transportation — to be used to gauge a school system's compliance with the mandate of Brown. (Green v. County School Board of New Kent County)In a private note to Justice Brennan, Justice Warren writes: "When this opinion is handed down, the traffic light will have changed from Brown to Green. Amen!"1969 The Supreme Court declares the "all deliberate speed" standard is no longer constitutionally permissible and orders the immediate desegregation of Mississippi schools. (Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education)1971 The Court approves busing, magnet schools, compensatory education and other tools as appropriate remedies to overcome the role of residential segregation in perpetuating racially segregated schools. (Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg Board of Education)1972 The Supreme Court refuses to allow public school systems to avoid desegregation by creating new, mostly or all-white "splinter districts." (Wright v. Council of the City of Emporia; United States v. Scotland Neck City Board of Education)Brown's legacy extends to gender. Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 is passed prohibiting sex discrimination in any educational program that receives federal financial assistance.1973 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is passed prohibiting schools from discriminating against students with mental or physical impairments.The Supreme Court rules that states cannot provide textbooks to racially segregated private schools to avoid integration mandates. (Norwood v. Harrison)The Supreme Court finds that the Denver school board intentionally segregated Mexican American and black students from white students. (Keyes v. Denver School District No. 1)The Court distinguishes between state-mandated segregation (de jure) and segregation that is the result of private choices (de facto). The latter form of segregation, the Court rules, is not unconstitutionalThe Supreme Court rules that education is not a "fundamental right" and that the Constitution does not require equal education expenditures within a state. (San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez) The ruling has the effect of locking minority and poor children who live in low-income areas into inferior schools.1974 The Supreme Court blocks metropolitan-wide desegregation plans as a means to desegregate urban schools with high minority populations. (Milliken v. Bradley) As a result, Brown will not have a substantial impact on many racially isolated urban districts.Non-English-speaking Chinese students file suit against the San Francisco Unified School District for failing to provide instruction to those with limited English proficiency. The Supreme Court rules that the failure to do so violates Title VI's prohibition of national origin, race or color discrimination in school districts receiving federal funds. (Lau v. Nichols)1978 A fractured Supreme Court declares the affirmative action admissions program for the University of California Davis Medical School unconstitutional because it set aside a specific number of seats for black and Latino students. The Court rules that race can be a factor in university admissions, but it cannot be the deciding factor. (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke)1982 The Supreme Court rejects tax exemptions for private religious schools that discriminate. (Bob Jones University v. U.S.; Goldboro Christian Schools v. U.S.)1986 For the first time, a federal court finds that once a school district meets the Greenfactors, it can be released from its desegregation plan and returned to local control. (Riddick v. School Board of the City of Norfolk, Virginia)1988 School integration reaches its all-time high; almost 45% of black students in the United States are attending majority-white schools.Look at all the turmoil going on with school desegregation in the 1970s.While people were still fighting over this, Black people were still attending schools that were under-funded and giving sub-par education. This was a known issue. The Black schools had outdated books, didn’t have funding for technology related course or the teachers to teach them.So this negates damn near every person of color from the technology industry for anyone in their late 30s on up. Most of the people you find in the field within these age groups were either.Able to live in a mixed communityIn the militaryHad a parent who got into the field because they were in the militaryHad fairly wealthy parentsI was personally lucky enough to have a father who worked on missile guidance systems in the Air Force, moved on to work at Burroughs corporation/Unisys and later started his own business that was technology related.Because I certainly didn’t learn anything in middle or high school that would’ve led me into this field.As an example. My middle school technology courses involved learning how to use a type writer. In high school, I learned about the history of computers and how to play games (not make them) on their outdated computers (of course, I knew this already… so I learned nothing). Oh, and we learned how to use WordStar & WordPerfect and how to make a resume.Nothing about building or repairing a computer and certainly nothing about programming one.And I took every tech course available to me at those schools.But at the house, we had several computers that my brother and I personally built; and a training facility my father owned (to train his clients) with another 30 computers to play with.I learned how to build web sites and desktop apps for some of our clients.That’s what started me on this path.How many Black people would you imagine were this lucky? Not many.So the number of Black developers my age or older is actually very impressive, when you consider what they had to go through to get to this point.And I’m seeing more and more young Black developers each year.Thanks for the A2A.

There are two different laws that cover them.The Right to Refuse Service: Can a Business Refuse Service to Someone?The entire United States is covered by the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination by privately owned places of public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. Places of “public accommodation” include hotels, restaurants, theaters, banks, health clubs and stores. Nonprofit organizations such as churches are generally exempt from the law.Private schools can discriminate as long as they don’t receive federal funds.Are Private Schools Allowed to Discriminate?RaceThanks to Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, plus a number of Supreme Court cases decided since then, no private school can discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin, in admissions or in hiring, or anything else; those that do would lose their non-profit status from the Internal Revenue Service. These IRS regulations enumerate over forty steps that civil rights enforcers should examine when determining if a private school is acting in a racially discriminatory manner.SexTitle IX ensures that public schools do not discriminate on the basis of sex, though decade-old regulations do allow for single-gender public schools if certain conditions are met. Title IX does not apply to private schools unless they receive federal funds; this allows them the option of remaining single-gender schools. Title IX does not apply to religious schools “to the extent that application of Title IX would be inconsistent with the religious tenets of the organization,” even if they do receive federal funds.Private schools must abide by the Equal Employment Opportunity’s act ban on gender discrimination in hiring, unless they are religiously controlled.Sexual OrientationCongress has never enacted civil rights protections based on sexual orientation. As a result, private schools are not required to admit LGBT students, or the children of LGBT parents, or hire LGBT teachers, at least under federal law. States can institute their own protections, but Maryland is the only state that has prohibited private schools participating in school choice programs from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.ReligionReligiously-controlled private schools are allowed to consider religion in admissions decisions. However, a handful of state school choice programs, including the one in Washington, D.C., require participating private schools to admit students regardless of religion.Religiously-controlled private schools can discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring decisions. For example, Jewish schools are under no obligation to consider Catholic or Muslim teachers for their faculty.Protections for students with disabilitiesMany students with disabilities attend private schools that are under contract with public and charter schools; these students retain their right to a “free and appropriate public education,” or FAPE, in a “least restrictive environment,” or LRE. However, if a family chooses to forego the services offered by their public schools, required by their Individualized Education Plan, and opts for a “parental placement” for their child instead, they also give up FAPE and LRE.Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, private schools must be willing to provide “auxiliary aids and services” to students with disabilities who are otherwise qualified for admission, so long as these accommodations would not change the fundamental nature of the program or result in significant difficulty or expense. Additional requirements under the ADA follow if the school receives public funds (such as through a state voucher program). In that case, schools cannot exclude a voucher participant based on disability if, “with minor adjustments,” such a student could reasonably participate in the private school’s education program. However, if a private school does not offer programs designed to meet a student’s special needs, the private school’s inability to serve that child is not considered discrimination. Religiously-controlled schools are exempted from these ADA requirements unless they receive federal funding.

Is positive discrimination necessary?This is probably as good a time as any to discuss what “affirmative action” really means. It does not mean a “quota” which sets aside slots exclusively for minority applicants — it just means that institutions may (if they choose) consider an applicant’s race among other factors if their goal is to increase a historically disadvantaged minority’s participation in their program. This is neither “necessary” to do justice, nor forbidden by law — it is up to each institution’s own policy makers, within the range of their permitted discretion in setting standards.So, no, “positive” discrimination — by which I presume you mean “reverse” discrimination, since “positive discrimination” is not a legal term of art and there is no such thing — is not necessary. In fact, it’s illegal (in the USA) to set up a racially-based quota system to combat amorphous, general “societal” discrimination.Such quota-like “affirmative action” plans are permissible only in response to and in order to remedy specific proven acts of discrimination, as part of a judicial consent order or judgment against a specific offending institution, and requires ongoing judicial supervision of the specific offender and of its restoration plan, to make sure that the proposed plan is the least intrusive way to accomplish a substantial state interest in preventing recurrence of discrimination against minority persons in that specific institution. Otherwise, while institutions are permitted to take account of race as one positive factor in deciding on minority applicants, they must give each applicant — white, black, whatever — individualized consideration.This was established way back in 1978 with the US Supreme Court’s decision in Regents of the Univ. of Califorina v. Bakke, in which the Court rejected as illegal the Regents’ actions in denying university admission to Mr. Bakke, a white applicant to the U.C. Davis medical school, in favor of minority applicants who were demonstrably less qualified according to the University’s own published standards. The University decided to do so not because it in particular had specifically discriminated in an illegal way against minority applicants in the past, but as kind of a general consciousness-raising and do-gooder effort to increase the number of minority admissions to its medical school.Regents of the University of California v. BakkeRegents of Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978)The Court’s reasoning, in their own words, clearly states the principle that:“If [the University’s] purpose is to assure within its student body some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin, such a preferential purpose must be rejected not as insubstantial, but as facially invalid. Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids. …“The State certainly has a legitimate and substantial interest in ameliorating, or eliminating where feasible, the disabling effects of identified discrimination. The line of school desegregation cases, commencing with Brown, attests to the importance of this state goal and the commitment of the judiciary to affirm all lawful means toward its attainment. In the school cases, the States were required by court order to redress the wrongs worked by specific instances of racial discrimination. That goal was far more focused than the remedying of the effects of "societal discrimination," an amorphous concept of injury that may be ageless in its reach into the past. We have never approved a classification that aids persons perceived as members of relatively victimized groups at the expense of other innocent individuals in the absence of judicial, legislative, or administrative findings of constitutional or statutory violations. After such findings have been made, the governmental interest in preferring members of the injured groups at the expense of others is substantial, since the legal rights of the victims must be vindicated. In such a case, the extent of the injury and the consequent remedy will have been judicially, legislatively, or administratively defined. Also, the remedial action usually remains subject to continuing oversight to assure that it will work the least harm possible to other innocent persons competing for the benefit. Without such findings of constitutional or statutory violations, it cannot be said that the government has any greater interest in helping one individual than in refraining from harming another. Thus, the government has no compelling justification for inflicting such harm.. . .“Hence, the purpose of helping certain groups whom the faculty of the Davis Medical School perceived as victims of "societal discrimination" does not justify a classification that imposes disadvantages upon persons like respondent, who bear no responsibility for whatever harm the beneficiaries of the special admissions program are thought to have suffered. To hold otherwise would be to convert a remedy heretofore reserved for violations of legal rights into a privilege that all institutions throughout the Nation could grant at their pleasure to whatever groups are perceived as victims of societal discrimination. That is a step we have never approved.”(Boldface emphasis is mine.)That is still the law. But, institutions which are not under judicial supervision because of proven past discrimination against minorities, are still permitted to craft “affirmative action” programs to attract more minority applicants (to schools, jobs, housing sales, etc.) so long as that program does not amount to a quota which would limit the number of “slots” available to qualified white applicants. Even still, institutions must be extremely careful not to cross the line into setting “quotas” again, or basing preferences solely on racial or ethnic grounds. This, too, was established by a later Supreme Court case, involving the University of Michigan:GRATZ V. BOLLINGERLet’s allow the Justices to speak for themselves as to their rationale on that case, too:“Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke emphasized the importance of considering each particular applicant as an individual, assessing all of the qualities that individual possesses, and in turn, evaluating that individual’s ability to contribute to the unique setting of higher education. The admissions program Justice Powell described, however, did not contemplate that any single characteristic automatically ensured a specific and identifiable contribution to a university’s diversity. … Instead, under the approach Justice Powell described, each characteristic of a particular applicant was to be considered in assessing the applicant’s entire application.“The current LSA [U. Mich School of Letters, Science and Arts] policy does not provide such individualized consideration. The LSA’s policy automatically distributes 20 points to every single applicant from an “underrepresented minority” group, as defined by the University. The only consideration that accompanies this distribution of points is a factual review of an application to determine whether an individual is a member of one of these minority groups. Moreover, unlike Justice Powell’s example, where the race of a “particular black applicant” could be considered without being decisive, see Bakke, … the LSA’s automatic distribution of 20 points has the effect of making “the factor of race … decisive” for virtually every minimally qualified underrepresented minority applicant.”(Boldface emphasis is mine.)The Court contrasted this improper, illegal approach of the Michigan LSA admissions committee to the more open-ended, non-quota system of consideration of racial factors that was then being practiced at Harvard:“Also instructive in our consideration of the LSA’s system is the example provided in the description of the Harvard College Admissions Program, which Justice Powell both discussed in, and attached to, his opinion in Bakke. The example was included to “illustrate the kind of significance attached to race” under the Harvard College program. Id., at 324. It provided as follows:“The Admissions Committee, with only a few places left to fill, might find itself forced to choose between A, the child of a successful black physician in an academic community with promise of superior academic performance, and B, a black who grew up in an inner-city ghetto of semi-literate parents whose academic achievement was lower but who had demonstrated energy and leadership as well as an apparently abiding interest in black power. If a good number of black students much like A but few like B had already been admitted, the Committee might prefer B; and vice versa. If C, a white student with extraordinary artistic talent, were also seeking one of the remaining places, his unique quality might give him an edge over both A and B. Thus, the critical criteria are often individual qualities or experience not dependent upon race but sometimes associated with it.” Ibid. (emphasis added).“This example further demonstrates the problematic nature of the LSA’s admissions system. Even if student C’s “extraordinary artistic talent” rivaled that of Monet or Picasso, the applicant would receive, at most, five points under the LSA’s system. At the same time, every single underrepresented minority applicant, including students A and B, would automatically receive 20 points for submitting an application. Clearly, the LSA’s system does not offer applicants the individualized selection process described in Harvard’s example. Instead of considering how the differing backgrounds, experiences, and characteristics of students A, B, and C might benefit the University, admissions counselors reviewing LSA applications would simply award both A and B 20 points because their applications indicate that they are African-American, and student C would receive up to 5 points for his “extraordinary talent.”. . .“Nothing in Justice Powell’s opinion in Bakke signaled that a university may employ whatever means it desires to achieve the stated goal of diversity without regard to the limits imposed by our strict scrutiny analysis.“We conclude, therefore, that because the University’s use of race in its current freshman admissions policy is not narrowly tailored to achieve respondents’ asserted compelling interest in diversity, the admissions policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. We further find that the admissions policy also violates Title VI [of the 1965 Civil Rights Act] and 42 U.S.C. § 1981.”(Boldface emphasis is mine.)Thanks for the A2A.