Justice to review discrimination enforcement for grant recipients

Move could boost efforts to combat systemic racism.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department will review how it enforces prohibitions on racial discrimination by law enforcement agencies that receive federal funding, according to a department memo, a move that could broaden the Biden administration’s efforts to combat systemic racism in policing, prisons and courts.

What’s happening

While the review concerns law enforcement funding, it could affect how the federal government oversees grant recipients in transportation, health care, education and other sectors that receive federal money.

The issue of racial discrimination in policing came to a head last year after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, who died when a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck, setting off months of nationwide protests.

Why it matters

The Biden Justice Department has made civil rights enforcement a priority, opening investigations into allegations of systemic racial discrimination by police forces in Minneapolis, Phoenix and Louisville, Ky., as well as the state prisons in Georgia. It has placed some troubled law enforcement organizations under consent decrees, a court-overseen overhaul plan.

In a memo Wednesday written by Vanita Gupta, the associate attorney general, and obtained by The New York Times, the Justice Department announced a 90-day review that will examine whether it was doing enough to ensure that federal funds were not distributed to law enforcement organizations that engage in discrimination.

What it means

Approximately $4.5 billion in federal funding flows through the department to police departments, courts and correctional facilities, as well as victim services groups, research organizations and nonprofit groups. All of these organizations, not just police departments, will be affected by this review. The department sought to increase that amount in its latest budget request to $7 billion for the next fiscal year.

The results of the review could allow the department to reevaluate which groups receive federal grants or to ask the courts to require recipients to change their policies or procedures in order to continue receiving the funds.

Two laws prohibit racial discrimination in law enforcement programs that receive federal funds: Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.