the significance of this approach, the IRS to prove its case rather than leaving the burden to the individual.

Mr. GIBBONS. The exemption continues until IRS has proven

Mr. CHAPPELL. Yes, by a preponderance of the evidence that the school is discriminatory. Then what Mr. Gradison said, at that point, there could be a determination that if certain factors found to be discriminatory were cured, then the school might continue and exemption continue until such time it is shown that it can't meet the test.

This would be under whatever statutory guidance would be forthcoming from the Congress.

Mr. GIBBONS. Thank you very much.

Mr. CHAPPELL. Thank you, gentlemen.

Mr. GIBBONS. Our final panel today is composed of Mr. Robert Lamborn and Ann Rosewater. Mr. Lamborn represents the Council for American Private Education and Miss Rosewater represents the Education Coalition and Children's Defense Fund.

We welcome both of you witnesses and Mr. Lamborn, unless you object, we will let the lady proceed first.

Mr. LAMBORN. Fine. I have Mr. John Ryan with me as general counsel.

Mr. GIBBONS. He may come forward. We will let Miss Rosewater proceed first.

STATEMENT OF ANN ROSEWATER, THE EDUCATION COALITION Miss ROSEWATER. Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee, my name is Ann Rosewater.

I appreciate the opportunity to present to you the views of the Education Coalition, a group of nonprofit advocacy organizations, including the Southeastern Public Education Program of the American Friends Service Committee, the Federal Education Project of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Children's Defense Fund, and several community-based child care groups in the South.

During the past decade the Education Coalition has worked cooperatively to assure that all children and families in this country receive the benefits of public education free from discrimination on the basis of race, sex, handicapping condition or economic or cultural background. The Education Coalition's concern about the matter of private school segregation is longstanding. Two early reports, the "Status of School Desegregation" (1970) and "It's Not Over in the South" (1973), identified the growth of discriminatory private academies and their negative impact on desegregating public school districts in southern communities.

Members of the coalition testified before the Internal Revenue Service late last year in response to the first set of guidelines, long overdue, to regulate the granting of tax-exempt status to private schools.

We are here before you today to restate our firm belief that in this 25th anniversary year of the Brown decision it is incumbent on Congress and the Federal Government to assure vigorous and consistent efforts to root out discriminatory practices in schools enjoying the benefits of Federal financial assistance, no matter in what form.

The February 9, 1979, proposed Internal Revenue Service tax exemption procedures represent a substantial retreat from such a commitment.

The Education Coalition has been constant in its view that the Federal Government must uphold congressional and judicial nondiscrimination mandates by developing policies and standards of enforcement which are objective and verifiable and which have the capacity to measure what they purport to test.

Our experience in southern school districts during periods of desegregation demonstrate why such precise and measurable tests are essential. You will recall, I am sure, that many public school districts originally desegregated under "freedom of choice" plans, alleging nondiscrimination.

The districts' claims, however, did not actually mean that they were not practicing discrimination. It was necessary then, as it is now, to look at what the school district actually accomplished-who attended these "desegregated" schools and under what conditions, and who did not-to determine what the reality of desegregation under freedom of choice plans was.

Freedom of choice plans called for an exceptional act of initiative on the part of black parents and children, the very group being discriminated against, and placed the burden for ending discrimination on them rather than on the institutions which had perpetrated the discriminatory practices.

The proposed revenue procedure presently under consideration follows a similarly unsatisfactory and ineffective approach to enforcing nondiscrimination in private schools. The current proposal requires only efforts "reasonably designed to attract minority students" and includes no clear requirement to demonstrate either actual enrollment of minority students or employment of minority faculty.

Thus, the IRS guideline would continue an unacceptable practice through inadequate tests and considerable discretion lodged in the enforcement agency itself: The institutions responsible for maintaining nondiscriminatory practices would be relieved of any affirmative requirement to show that the practice is being carried out.

Instead, the proposal again places on the victims of discrimination the burden for ending racial discrimination by private schools, many of which were created or expanded as a direct response to and evasion of legitimate efforts to desegregate public schools.

It further creates an overwhelming task for the IRS to enforce these guidelines, requiring a substantial staff and an aggressive compliance strategy.

If the IRS is serious about compelling private schools to live up to their legal responsibilities as a prerequisite to obtaining or retaining a tax exemption, then it should look at the procedures other Federal agencies have developed over decades of experience.

These agencies concur in the need to have specific objective standards identifying measurable tests of nondiscrimination, as well as in requiring public and private institutions alike to prove to the Government that they are not discriminating.

New uniform selection guidelines for employment, issued last August 25, 1978, offer a notable model. These guidelines, adopted by the

Justice Department, the Department of Labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Civil Service Commission, apply to any private or public employer, including Federal, State, and local governments.

The guidelines require, when talking about employment standards, that the company (or other employer) actually show that its selection practices create no adverse impact against minorities or women.

Further, in the event that the company cannot make a showing of minorities and women in its work force comparable to the numbers of whites and males, then it must show that the current selection practices are necessary business practices and that the business cannot be safely or efficiently operated with more minority or women employees.

This is but one approach used by other Federal agencies to enforcement of nondiscrimination statutes. The Office of Contract Compliance Programs in the Department of Labor uses another approach.

Both approaches, however, are clear: They set out specific, objective, and measurable tests of nondiscrimination and they place the burden of proof on the institutions responsible for compliance with the law, not on the individuals who have experienced the discriminatory prac

tices.

Private schools should be subject to equally strong standards and scrutiny by the Federal Government since they enjoy the benefits of Federal financial assistance through the privilege of their tax exempt

status.

Guidelines proposed by the Internal Revenue Service last August, and subsequently withdrawn, took a positive step toward developing objective standards and providing the basis for vigorous and consistent enforcement.

The guidelines proposed this month, however, by their vagueness and discretionary nature, would condone discriminatory practices by private institutions.

By sanctioning private schools which discriminate against black children and families, the IRS proposal also acts as an accomplice to those who would weaken the public education systems which are trying to live up to their legal responsibilities to serve all children equitably.

I would like to call to your attention at this time the testimony of Rims Barber which has been submitted to you in written form and would ask your permission to submit it in the record. Mr. Barber currently directs the Mississippi office of the Childrens' Defense Fund and is a parent who comes from a community where many private schools sprang up in the wake of public school desegregation.

He sets out a clear record of the impact of these schools on parents who have supported the public schools against significant odds. Past actions and nonactions of the IRS have served to support institutions evading the law and actively discriminating against black children. We, as others, are not in favor of unduly burdening innocent schools, but we contend that if private schools are obeying the law, then conformance to strong standards will not be a great burden.

For instance, legitimate religious schools formed for religious reasons would not have problems with IRS' August 1978 regulations because their student bodies reflect the community.

We do not favor, however, the February standards which are unlikely to reach known segregation academies, church-connected or nonsectarian, which continue to show up on IRS lists of approved tax exempt institutions.

For example, the most recent list of Mississippi education organizations which are presently recognized as exempt from Federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code includes 10 institutions readily recognizable to people of the State as segregation academies.

Seven of these schools are in districts where almost all the whites disappeared from the public schools during desegregation. Old IRS procedures were clearly inadequate to identify these offending institutions, and their continuing appearance on the "approved" list demonstrates the very reason that strong and specific guidelines are now imperative.

Much public attention has focused on the flourishing of segregation academies in southern school districts. While the southern experience may be more obvious, school districts in cities across the country are under requirements to desegregate, and we have little doubt that the response of many families will be similar, if not more covert.

The growth of segregation academies would occur as much in Chicago if the law were enforced there as in Atlanta.

As the Education Coalition hopes to undo the segregation of our cities, both north and south, tax exemptions given routinely and without vigorous scrutiny against measurable standards of nondiscrimination would be a serious threat to this process.

The Education Coalition is firmly against the provision of Federal financial assistance where it denies equity in education opportunity. IRS' Proposed Revenue Procedure of February 9, 1978 is gravely inadequate to prevent discriminatory private schools from obtaining the benefits of Federal assistance through the tax exemption.

The Southern Coalition for Educational Equity joins the Education Coalition in supporting the reinstatement of the August 22, 1978 proposed guidelines which represent a serious effort to carry out the Federal Government's constitutional responsibility to assure nondiscrimination.

Mr. Chairman, over the last week we have heard a lot of potential horror stories from witnesses who fear overenforcement by IRS. The facts do not, however, lend any credence to such portents.

On the contrary, we currently have no enforcement by the IRS, a fact which IRS itself has identified as unacceptable and which led the Service to recognize its responsibility and issue the August deadline. Further, the proportion of existing private schools touched by this guideline is statistically low despite the allegations of many of the witnesses.

There are only a handful of schools in the adjudicated category and generally the number of private schools which have emerged since the 1960's when desegregation of public schools began is a relatively small portion of the private and parochial schools in the country.

Thus, the reviewable category does not apply to the universe of private schools as some would have us believe. We urge the Congress to allow IRS to do its job to promulgate the guideline, consistent with

the mandates of the courts, collect and publish data on private school enrollments and enforce the law.

After IRS has taken these steps then congressional oversight will be appropriate. If difficulties surface after they have taken these steps then the committee might want to consider legislative solutions.

However, we respectfully submit that congressional intervention at this point is totally premature.

Thank you. I would be happy to answer any questions. [The following was submitted for the record:]

STATEMENT OF RIMS BARBER, PROJECT DIRECTOR OF THE CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND, MISSISSIPPI OFFICE

I am Rims Barber, Project Director of the Children's Defense Fund's Mississippi office. I am the parent of four children who attend the public schools in Jackson. Their Elementary School is 80 percent Black, the Junior High is 93 percent Black, and the High School is 72 percent Black. I am committed to the public schools and do not feel kindly about those forces that might undermine the commitment of communities to their schools. Those parents who pulled their children out and fled the public schools in the wake of desegregation have severely hurt that community commitment to quality schools for all children. It is unfair for the Federal Government to aid and abet those citizens who would so undermine the schools by giving them an easy tax deduction. It makes the government an accessory to the deprivation of my children's rights to a nondiscriminatory public education. Yet that is what the previous policy has done.

There are thousands of parents in our state that have stuck by their principles and continue actively to support the public schools. Some of us have walked the streets in the white community, talking to parents about the quality of education available for their children within the public system. We have had coffees and meetings and intimate cocktail parties. People have spent money to purchase media time, used their energy to advocate for greater support of the public school system, and put their good name on the line. These are the common citizens that the federal government through the Internal Revenue Service must support. This is the kind of grass roots community effort that the government cannot turn its back on by watering down the proposed revenue procedures.

The Children's Defense Fund is committed to equal educational opportunity for all children. Our agency and its staff have given congressional testimony numer. ous times on a variety of measures that would affect that opportunity for every child to receive an education, to enhance and to reach the potential for a humane and gratifying life. Our record is clear. The government's has not been. The federal government must do all in its power to erase the vestiges of past racial deprivation. Promulgating rules that in some manner measure discrimination is one small step in the right direction.

Personally and professionally, I have been involved since 1965 in the struggle to desegregate our schools and to enhance the quality of what is offered to all children. In the 1960's I was beaten, jailed and shot at because of my actions in support of court-ordered desegregation. The fight to gain access to quality schooling for Black children in Mississippi has been long and arduous and it is not over yet.

I remember the first brave Black students who entered the white schools under an order of the court. Under freedom of choice hundreds of Black children across the State became the only Black child in their class. Often they were harassed. Some were physically harmed. Others were forced to withdraw as they or their parents were overwhelmed by the pressures placed on them. These were the soldiers in the righteous cause of opening the doors of equal educational opportunity. To undermine the school system that they fought to share in cannot be tolerated or supported by the Federal Government.

The response of certain elements in the white community to abandon the public schools and flee to any lily-white sanctuary is an ongoing part of the ugly history of racism. In Mississippi, more than a hundred churches, former public buildings and abandoned structures were turned into segregated academies. Twenty percent of the white students left the public system. In more than 25 school