Disparate Impact Liability Eliminated from Title VI by the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services
Authors: Andrea Stagg & Omar E. Torres
On July 24, 2026, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services issued final rules to eliminate disparate impact liability from Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These rules follow on the heels of a similar December 2025 rule from the Department of Justice.
These rules clarify that “Title VI prohibits only intentional discrimination, not conduct or activities that merely result in a disparate impact or outcome, and that the Department, thus, will not pursue Title VI disparate-impact liability against its Federal funding recipients.” The publications from the three agencies are aligned and use consistent language to reiterate that Title VI “does not prohibit unintentional disparate impact” and that rather than making a material change, the new final rules simply “harmonize” the scope of the regulations to conform with Title VI. In other words, the position of the agencies is that including disparate-impact liability was in error, because it was outside of the scope of Title VI.
These rules reflect the agencies’ implementation of Executive Order 14281, Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy, issued in April of 2025.
What does this mean for schools, institutions of higher education, and others impacted by Title VI? On a practical level, these agencies will only enforce discriminatory harassment and discrimination under Title VI that is intentional. Title VI complaints solely relying on a disparate-impact liability theory will not be in scope for these agencies to investigate. But remember that Title VII, an employment discrimination statute, still includes disparate impact liability at this time. And state laws and institutional policies may prohibit discrimination based on a disparate impact. Your institutional obligations may not change at all from these rules, but the recourse available to individuals wishing to file a grievance under Title VI has changed.
