20 U.S.C. § 1701
Section 1701 · Congressional declaration of policy
This is § 202 of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974
Amended 1 time on record
Applied in 74 court decisions — leading case Gomez v. Illinois State Board of Education (1987)
Most recently applied in Bostock v. Clayton County (June 2020)
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year.Markers show enactment, consequential amendments, and circuit splits over this section — watch for a citation surge after a change or a disagreement. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
The Congress declares it to be the policy of the United States that—
(1) all children enrolled in public schools are entitled to equal educational opportunity without regard to race, color, sex, or national origin; and
(2) the neighborhood is the appropriate basis for determining public school assignments.
In order to carry out this policy, it is the purpose of this subchapter to specify appropriate remedies for the orderly removal of the vestiges of the dual school system.
Editorial notes U.S. Code · Office of the Law Revision Counsel
Effective Date
Chapter effective on and after sixtieth day after Aug. 21, 1974, see section 2(c) of Pub. L. 93 380, set out as a note under section 1221 1 of this title.
Short Title
Section 201 of title II of Pub. L. 93 380 provided that: “This title [enacting this chapter and section 1228 of this title and amending section 1608 of this title] may be cited as the ‘Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974’.”