## Facts

- Taylor County, Florida operated eight public schools with approximately 2,900 white students and 975 Black students and had been entirely segregated before 1965–66.
- After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the school board adopted a “freedom of choice” desegregation plan that federal officials initially approved, and the board completed required compliance assurances and notices.
- Desegregation results were minimal: a small number of Black students attended formerly all-white schools, and no white students attended formerly all-Black schools.
- The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) initiated Title VI administrative proceedings; after hearings, an examiner found the district in violation and concluded it was no longer entitled to federal funds.
- HEW issued an order terminating all federal financial assistance to the district across multiple grant programs.
- HEW did not make findings that any particular federally funded program was itself administered in a discriminatory manner; it relied on the district’s overall operation of a discriminatory school system.
- The school board sought judicial review, arguing that Title VI did not authorize an across-the-board termination without program-specific findings.

## Issues

1. Whether Title VI authorizes HEW to terminate all federal financial assistance to a school district based on a systemwide finding of discrimination, absent findings tying noncompliance to each federally assisted program.
2. Whether HEW’s findings and order satisfied Title VI’s statutory and regulatory limits requiring sanctions to be confined to the particular program (or part) in which noncompliance is found.

## Decision

- The court sustained HEW’s determination that the school district was operating in violation of Title VI.
- The court set aside HEW’s across-the-board termination of all federal funds as exceeding Title VI’s limits.
- The court remanded for further proceedings so HEW could reconsider and, if warranted, issue a termination order limited to the particular program(s) (or parts) in which noncompliance was properly found and supported by findings.

## Legal Principles

- Title VI’s prohibition and remedies are program-specific: discrimination must be shown “under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.”
- Under 42 U.S.C. § 2000d-1, any termination or refusal of assistance must be limited in effect to the particular program (or part) in which noncompliance has been found.
- An agency may not impose a blanket cutoff of all federal assistance to a recipient without findings linking the violation to the specific federally assisted program(s) affected.
- Even where an agency reasonably finds Title VI noncompliance, its remedial order must be supported by findings and must remain within statutory constraints on scope.

## Conclusion

The Fifth Circuit upheld the finding that Taylor County’s school system remained unlawfully discriminatory under Title VI, but ruled that HEW could not terminate all federal funds without program-specific findings and a remedy confined to the particular federally assisted program(s) in which noncompliance was found, requiring remand for a properly limited order.


Bd. of Pub. Instruction of Taylor Cnty. v. Finch, 414 F.2d 1068 (5th Cir. 1969)