House Panels Approve Bills to Restore Anti-Bias Powers Curtailed by Court

Two congressional panels moved Tuesday to speed legislation to the House floor that would restore federal anti-discrimination enforcement powers limited by the Supreme Court’s Grove City College decision last year.

The House Education and Labor Committee voted 29 to 2 to recommend passage of the bipartisan Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1985 after adopting a set of largely technical amendments. A similar measure was approved by a 5-3 vote of the House Judiciary subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights.

The legislation was under study by both panels because it deals with both educational and constitutional matters. The full House Judiciary Committee is expected to approve it today.

More than 200 Republican and Democratic House members are co-sponsoring proposals to reverse the high court’s decision of Feb. 28, 1984, which limited coverage of the 1972 civil rights law banning sex discrimination.

The court said such an anti-bias ban applies only to a specific educational program receiving federal funds--not to an entire institution. Civil rights organizations have charged that the decision has led to a dramatic cutback in federal enforcement of laws protecting women, minorities, the elderly and the handicapped.

They point out that the government no longer can threaten to cut off federal funding to schools or other institutions that are found to be practicing discrimination.

California Rep. Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles), chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, told his colleagues that passage of such a measure is necessary for “simple restoration” of civil rights enforcement powers that existed before the Supreme Court’s decision.

The Hawkins bill, co-sponsored by Rep. James M. Jeffords (R-Vt.), the ranking minority member, seeks to restore the full reach of four civil rights laws that legal experts believe have been curtailed by the court’s ruling.