A/HRC/11/36/Add.3 page 10 C. Education 26. Educational policy at the federal level is carried out by the Department of Education. An Office for Civil Rights within the Department is mandated “to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation through vigorous enforcement of civil rights”. This Office enforces several federal laws that prohibit discrimination, including Titles VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin). The Office for Civil Rights enforces this law in all institutions, including elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities that receive funds from the Department of Education. 27. An important piece of federal legislation in the domain of education is the No Child Left Behind Act, which was enacted by Congress in 2002. One of its key objectives is to promote more accountability in public schools and to improve the performance of students. In this regard, it also explicitly addresses the need to close the achievement gap between white and minority students.10 Recent data indicates that although the achievement gap is still large, it has narrowed in recent years.11 D. Housing 28. Extensive legislation to prevent discrimination on housing and lending has been set up over the past decades. This includes the Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968), which prohibits discrimination in the sale, rental or financing of housing on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, familial status or national origin. The Act expanded the protections offered by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VI), which prohibited discrimination in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance but refrained from regulating private conduct in the domain of housing. 29. Federal laws on fair housing are administered and enforced by the Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The number of complaints filed with HUD and the Fair Housing Assistance Program (which provides grants to State and local fair housing enforcement agencies) has increased substantially in the last ten years, from 5,818 complaints in 1998 to 10,154 in 2007. However, it is not evident whether this reflects an increase in housing discrimination or better knowledge of fair housing laws and willingness to report cases of discrimination. In 2007, 43 percent of complaints were based on disability, 37 percent on race, 14 percent on family status and 14 percent on national origin.12 10 Department of Education, How No Child Left Behind Benefits African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians, http://www.ed.gov/nclb/accountability/achieve/edpicks.jhtml?src=az. 11 Source: National Center for Educational Statistics. 12 Department of Housing and Urban Development, The State of Fair Housing 2007, pp. 4-5.