Title VI - Goals
Program Overview
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color or national origin in programs or activities receiving federal financial assistance. Presidential Executive Order 12898 addresses environmental justice in minority and low-income populations. Presidential Executive Order 13166 addresses services to those individuals with limited English proficiency. The rights of women, the elderly and the disabled are protected under related statutes. These Presidential Executive Orders and the related statutes fall under the umbrella of Title VI.
The Title VI Program is responsible for providing leadership, direction and policy to ensure compliance with "Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of1964" and Environmental Justice principles. The Department is proud of its longstanding policy to ensure that social impacts to communities and people are recognized early and continually throughout the transportation decision-making process. Also, the Title VI Program ensures nondiscrimination in all of its programs, activities and services whether those programs, activities and services are federally funded or not.
Five Title VI goals for preventing discrimination in a federal aid program are:
Create, implement and maintain a Title VI Interdisciplinary Team. The Title VI Interdisciplinary Team is a coordinated and cooperative effort by functional programs and civil rights specialists to ensure Title VI and related statute requirements are identified and considered in advance of any decision-making activity.
Create awareness of statutory non-discriminatory requirements. This goal is accomplished by disseminating statutes/regulations via a Title VI Resource Directory and educating staff through training and presentations statewide.
Establish a systematic and ongoing public involvement process that engages communities affected by transportation projects.
Identify potential discriminatory impacts early. Early detection can often minimize and reduce negative impacts to minority and low-income populations and delays to project delivery.
Avoid, eliminate or minimize adverse impacts. Transportation agencies may encounter some situations where negative impacts are unavoidable. In these situations, Transportation agencies must work with communities to develop mitigation measures to minimize impact.
The department, as the recipient of federal aid, established its Title VI Program goals and measurements to attain nondiscrimination in all of its operations.