Appendix B to 34 CFR Part 104—Guidelines for Eliminating Discrimination and Denial of Services on the Basis of Race, Color, National Origin, Sex, and Handicap in Vocational Education Programs

B. State Agencies Performing Oversight Responsibilities

The State agency responsible for the administration of vocational education programs must adopt a compliance program to prevent, identify and remedy discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex or handicap by its subrecipients. (A “subrecipient,” in this context, is a local agency or vocational education center that receives financial assistance through a State agency.) This compliance program must include:

1. Collecting and analyzing civil rights related data and information that subrecipients compile for their own purposes or that are submitted to State and Federal officials under existing authorities;

2. Conducting periodic compliance reviews of selected subrecipients (i.e., an investigation of a subrecipient to determine whether it engages in unlawful discrimination in any aspect of its program); upon finding unlawful discrimination, notifying the subrecipient of steps it must take to attain compliance and attempting to obtain voluntary compliance;

3. Providing technical assistance upon request to subrecipients. This will include assisting subrecipients to identify unlawful discrimination and instructing them in remedies for and prevention of such discrimination;

4. Periodically reporting its activities and findings under the foregoing paragraphs, including findings of unlawful discrimination under paragraph 2, immediately above, to the Office for Civil Rights.

State agencies are not required to terminate or defer assistance to any subrecipient. Nor are they required to conduct hearings. The responsibilities of the Office for Civil Rights to collect and analyze data, to conduct compliance reviews, to investigate complaints and to provide technical assistance are not diminished or attenuated by the requirements of Section II of the Guidelines.