A Shameful Failure on Rights

President Reagan has vetoed the most significant civil-rights legislation to pass Congress in more than five years. The Civil Rights Restoration Act is a basic reaffirmation that no money collected from the people of this country should be used to support any institution or activity that discriminates against women, minorities, the handicapped or the elderly. The President’s veto represents a shameful failure of understanding--one in the Administration’s chain of indifference toward civil rights--and Congress should swiftly reject it.

Congress acted in response to a 1984 Supreme Court decision involving Grove City College. Before that decision the government cut off money to an entire institution if any of its programs discriminated. Women had found the threat of this financial punishment especially helpful in winning university support for their athletic programs at schools that traditionally had given far more money to men’s teams.

The court said, however, that schools and other institutions could lose money only if the discriminatory program itself was federally financed. A week after the decision, the U.S. Department of Education dropped sex-discrimination charges against the University of Maryland’s athletic program, and later closed or reduced the scope of more than 670 discrimination cases.

A handful of unyielding conservatives still fight at Reagan’s side, but many Republicans oppose the veto. Sen. Rudy Boschwitz (R-Minn.) has told the President that discrimination continues every day and, “while we cannot legislate what is in the hearts of people, we can legislate behavior on the part of our public institutions.”

Congress must stand with those who still must fight for their full rights.