Summary: This report focuses on the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division's (CRT) approach to its selection of cases and reasons why matters were closed. GAO reviewed the case selection in CRT's Housing and Civil Enforcement, Employment Litigation, and Voting sections. According to officials in these sections, CRT lacks written procedures for selecting cases to pursue. To determine CRT's approach for selecting cases to pursue, GAO reviewed 21 Employment Litigation Cases that were initiated during fiscal year (FY) 1998. GAO's review of the Employment Litigation section case files showed that several of the discretionary cases targeted a particular type of discrimination that involved complaints based on sexual harassment. To determine why matters were closed, GAO reviewed the population of 54 Housing and Civil Enforcement section closed matters and 22 Voting section closed matters initiated in FY 1998. For cases involving the Employment Litigation section, GAO reviewed a statistically representative sample of 64 closed matters from the population of 149 closed employment matters in FY 1998. Further investigation was based on factors such as whether the matter could affect a larger population, target enforcement in a particular location, target a particular type of discrimination, or result in a change of policies or practices that were discriminatory.
