Government-Wide Coordination Activities for Implementing Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973

Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 recognized the rights of handicapped individuals to participate in and benefit from federally funded programs and activities. In April 1976, an Executive Order directed the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to coordinate implementation of section 504 throughout the Federal Government. The Order also directed HEW to establish standards for determining who handicapped persons were under the provisions of section 504, and to develop guidelines for determining discriminatory practices prohibited by section 504. A review of the HEW Government-wide coordination activities for implementing section 504 was performed. In November 1980, an Executive Order transferred the responsibility for coordinating Federal agencies' implementation of section 504 to the Department of Justice.

HEW did not issue its guidelines until January 1978, almost 2 years after the Executive Order. HEW attributed the delay to a lack of congressional guidance on the complex issues raised by the far-reaching prohibition against discrimination. The HEW January 1978 guidelines did not provide direction for some of the situations that Federal agencies might encounter; instead, HEW advised the agencies to include specific provisions in their own regulations for the particular programs and activities they administered. Several inconsistencies were found between the HEW 1978 guidelines and the section 504 regulations issued by other Federal agencies. While HEW provided technical assistance to other Federal agencies, it often failed to advise them about available policy statements, and in one instance delayed the clarification of a court decision affecting the enforcement of section 504. Twenty-eight Federal agencies and offices were requested by HEW to issue regulations for implementing section 504, but as of April 1980, only six had done so. While agency officials gave a number of reasons for the delays, it was believed that a major cause was the low priority agencies gave to enforcing the requirements of section 504.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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