FIRST FEDERAL RACIAL PROFILING PROVISION APPROVED

The House recently approved the Transportation Equity Act, which includes the first racial profiling provision in federal law.

Rep. Eleanor Norton (D-D.C.) included a provision that allows states to apply for federal funds - $60 million over six years - to develop racial profiling laws, to maintain racial data of vehicle stops by police and to train law enforcement officers so that they do not make stops on the basis of race.

The Norton provision contains tough requirements for qualifying for the federal grant funding, including a state law prohibiting the use of race or ethnicity of drivers or passengers to "any degree" in making traffic stops.

A state also must maintain racial and ethnic statistics on each vehicle stop for public inspection.  In addition, states are required to provide satisfactory assurances that they are continuously enforcing racial profiling laws.

Norton said that the new section was needed to clarify existing requirements, including Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that prohibits the use of state and federal funds to subsidize discrimination, such as discriminatory actions by law enforcement officers as well as the 14th Amendment which requires equal protection of the laws.  As a result, successful cases have been brought in state courts, including Maryland. 

"One of the reasons racial profiling remains widespread," Norton said, "is because federal law has been silent, unlike the case with job discrimination and discrimination in other state and federal activities." 

Norton said the provision is an important first step, but she remains committed to adding a ban on racial profiling to the nation's civil rights laws and is a cosponsor of the End Racial Profiling Act of 2004, introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).