What Does Title IV of the Civil Rights Act Do?

Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gives the U.S. Attorney General the authority to sue public schools and public colleges that deny students equal protection of the laws because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It also directs the Secretary of Education to provide technical assistance and grants to school districts working through desegregation. What sets Title IV apart from most federal civil rights laws is who can enforce it: only the Department of Justice can file a Title IV lawsuit. Students and parents cannot bring their own cases under this statute.

Which Schools Are Covered

The statute reaches any elementary or secondary school operated by a state, a subdivision of a state, or a governmental agency. It also covers public colleges, meaning any institution of higher education or vocational school above the secondary level that is run by the government or funded wholly or predominantly with government money or property.¹ The “predominantly” language matters. A college does not need to be entirely government-funded to fall within Title IV; government funding just has to be the primary source keeping it open.

Public charter schools are covered too. Because they operate under a contract with a public agency and function as public schools, the same civil rights principles that apply to traditional district schools apply to them.² A different governance structure does not shed Title IV obligations.

Private schools that receive no government funding and are not operated by a government entity fall outside Title IV. They may face obligations under other federal or state laws, but not this one.

What Title IV Prohibits

The statute addresses two distinct situations. A school board violates the law by depriving students of equal protection because of a protected characteristic. A public college violates it by denying admission or expelling a student on the same grounds.³ The school board scenario is broader and reaches any policy or practice that treats similarly situated students unequally. The college scenario is narrower and focuses on individual denials of enrollment or continued attendance.

The five protected categories are race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Religious discrimination sometimes gets overlooked in discussions of school desegregation, but the DOJ’s Educational Opportunities Section handles Title IV complaints involving religion across all faiths.⁴

There is an important boundary on what “desegregation” means under Title IV. The statute defines it as assigning students to schools without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and it expressly says desegregation does not mean reassigning students to different schools to overcome racial imbalance.¹ Nothing in Title IV expands a court’s power to order students bused between schools or districts to achieve racial balance.³

Separately, the statute does not prohibit schools from grouping students for reasons unrelated to the protected categories. Classifications based on academic performance, age, or special education needs are permitted, as long as they are not a pretext for discrimination.

For sex discrimination in schools, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is the more commonly used law: it applies to any educational program receiving federal funding, allows individuals to sue on their own, and lets the Department of Education cut off federal money to violators. Title IV still reaches sex-based equal protection violations, but only through a DOJ lawsuit.

Only the Attorney General Can Sue

This is the point where people most often get Title IV wrong. The statute creates no private right of action. A student or parent cannot walk into federal court and file a Title IV case; the entire enforcement mechanism runs through the Department of Justice.⁵

If the DOJ does not take your case, you still have options under other laws. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in any program receiving federal financial assistance, and courts have recognized a private right of action under Title VI. You can also file an administrative complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which enforces Title VI, Title IX, and other federal civil rights statutes. OCR generally requires complaints within 180 days of the last discriminatory act.⁶ For sex discrimination, Title IX offers both a private lawsuit and the OCR process. For religious discrimination, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the First Amendment provide additional grounds for individual suits. Title IV is one tool among several, and it belongs to the Attorney General.

How the DOJ Decides to Bring a Case

A Title IV case starts with a written, signed complaint. For an elementary or secondary school, the complaint must come from a parent or group of parents alleging that their children, as members of a class of similarly situated people, are being denied equal protection by a school board. For a public college, an individual or their parent must allege denial of admission or continued attendance because of a protected characteristic.³

Before filing suit, the Attorney General has to make three determinations:

The complaint has merit.
The complainants cannot initiate and maintain their own legal proceedings, either because they cannot afford litigation or effective representation, or because filing a private lawsuit would risk their personal safety, employment, economic standing, or property.
Bringing the case will materially further the orderly achievement of desegregation in public education.

The safety and economic-standing prong reflects conditions the law was written to address. In 1964, families challenging segregation faced real risks of retaliation, job loss, and violence, and the statute lets the DOJ step in when private litigation would put complainants in danger.

Even after all three findings, the Attorney General must notify the school board or college and give it a reasonable time to fix the alleged problems before going to court. If the institution does not act, the DOJ files a civil action in federal district court on behalf of the United States.

What a Court Can Order

Once a Title IV case is filed, the court has broad authority to grant “such relief as may be appropriate.”³ Cases often resolve through consent decrees, which are court-supervised agreements requiring specific changes over a set period.

A consent decree in a Tennessee desegregation case shows the scope these remedies can reach. The district was required to develop a new student assignment policy, ensure Black students were properly identified for its gifted program, review advanced course enrollment for racial disparities, overhaul discipline policies to reduce racial gaps, eliminate corporal punishment, and conduct a hiring review to address disparities in recruiting and retaining Black faculty.⁷ Title IV relief can extend well past admission decisions to reach the full range of institutional practices that produce unequal treatment.

How to File a Complaint With the DOJ

Complaints go to the Civil Rights Division’s Educational Opportunities Section. You can submit through the Division’s online portal at civilrights.justice.gov or send a written complaint by mail.⁸ The online form does not require you to give your name or contact information, so anonymous complaints are technically possible.⁹ The statute itself requires a signed complaint for the DOJ to act, and investigators need to be able to reach you to follow up, so providing contact information makes a real difference.

Include as much of the following as you can:

The full name and location of the school or college, including the district if applicable.
A chronological description of what happened, with specific dates and details.
Names of administrators, teachers, or officials who participated in or enabled the conduct.
Names and contact information for witnesses.
Your connection to the claim, whether as a student, parent, or guardian, and how you or your child was affected.

Specific accounts tying particular actions to a protected category are much easier for the DOJ to evaluate than general allegations of unfairness.

Protection Against Retaliation

Federal civil rights laws prohibit retaliation against anyone who exercises their civil rights, reports discrimination, or participates in an investigation. That protection covers students, parents, guardians, teachers, coaches, and third parties advocating for a student.¹⁰ Retaliation includes intimidation, threats, and any adverse action that would discourage a reasonable person from asserting their rights: reassigning a student to a less desirable program after a parent files a complaint, giving a teacher poor evaluations after they cooperate with an investigation, and similar responses can support a separate retaliation claim filed with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

Technical Assistance and Grants for Districts

Title IV is not only an enforcement statute. It also directs the Secretary of Education, on request, to provide technical assistance to any school board, state, municipality, or governmental unit responsible for operating public schools. The assistance covers effective approaches to educational challenges created by desegregation and includes making Department of Education personnel available to advise school leaders.¹¹

The Secretary can also award grants to school boards for training teachers and staff on desegregation-related issues and for hiring specialists who can advise on those challenges.¹² Together with the DOJ’s enforcement authority, these provisions give the federal government both a stick and a carrot: lawsuits when schools resist, and support when they are willing but need help.

1
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000c – Definitions
2
U.S. Department of Education. Applying Federal Civil Rights Laws to Public Charter Schools
3
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 2000c-6 – Civil Actions by the Attorney General
4
Department of Justice. Types of Educational Opportunities Discrimination
5
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC Chapter 21, Subchapter IV – Public Education
6
U.S. Department of Education. OCR Discrimination Complaint Form
7
United States Department of Justice. Justice Department Secures Agreement in Tennessee School Desegregation Case
8
United States Department of Justice. Educational Opportunities Section
9
Department of Justice. Contact the Civil Rights Division
10
U.S. Department of Education. Retaliation Discrimination
11
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000c-2 – Technical Assistance in Preparation, Adoption, and Implementation of Plans for Desegregation of Public Schools
12
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 2000c-4 – Grants for Inservice Training in Dealing With and for Employment of Specialists to Advise in Problems Incident to Desegregation