plan for two and a half years. Meanwhile, several individuals sued HEW to compel that agency
to take a more active role in enforcing Title VI in certain states, including Maryland. The federal
district court granted the requested relief in 1972 in Adams v. Richardson.209 HEW then
reviewed the 1970 plan of Maryland and, in 1973, rejected it. A third plan for desegregating
higher education was submitted in February of 1974. HEW accepted it without reservation in
June of that year. Fourteen months later, the regional director of the Office of Civil Rights
(OCR) accused the state of failing to implement or only partially fulfilling its commitments. The
letter set forth a series of demands. After some negotiations in which officials of the state
believed that demands would be held in abeyance until the state received further guidance, the
OCR notified the state in December of 1975 that enforcement proceedings to cut off funds to the
state would be initiated.

Maryland responded by filing suit to enjoin federal enforcement proceedings until HEW
specified what programs receiving federal funds were discriminating and what steps should be
taken to end that discrimination. In Mandel v. U.S. Dept. of Health. Ed. and Welfare.210 the
federal district court issued the injunction. Judge Northrop's decision set forth some of the
problems.

Typically, when asked for specifics, defendants often responded with broad
sweeping phrases, such as, eliminate all vestiges of racial duality or eliminate all
racial identifiability, but gave no specifics on how this was to be accomplished.

Moreover, much of the State's confusion derived from HEW's perplexing
and conflicting use of statistics. . . . While repeatedly denying that their decisions
were based on statistics, the defendants, nevertheless consistently explicated
Maryland's violation of Title VI by citing statistics. For example, Peter Holmes
[director of OCR], by letter of May 21, 1973, which informed plaintiffs of the
State's violation of Title VI, indicated a marked reliance on statistics:

.. . The present disparities in the racial composition of the faculties
and student bodies among the various institutions in the Maryland
State system of higher education appear clearly attributable to the
existence of the prior dual system based on race. Accordingly, we
must conclude that the dual system has not been fully
disestablished.

... In addition to statistics, defendants left another perplexing problem
unresolved - whether institutions with black traditions could be permitted to
continue to preserve that identity. Early in the negotiations, Lt. Governor Lee
posed this disturbing question:

Morgan State College is academically superior to many of the
predominantly white colleges in HEW's Region HI. ... If you
eliminate Morgan's racial identifiability, you also eliminate one of

157