Defining recipients of Federal financial assistance under the nondiscrimination statutes

Congress passed Title VI, Title IX, the Rehabilitation Act, and the Age Discrimination Act to ensure that federal funds are not used in a discriminatory manner. It is suggested that a recognition of two specific categories of recipients - contractual recipients and intended recipients - more clearly defines the coverage of the nondiscrimination statutes. A court first should ask whether an entity is the contractual recipient of federal financial assistance. If an entity is not a contractual recipient, then a court should ask whether the entity qualifies as an intended recipient of federal financial assistance. If the entity is neither a contractual nor an intended recipient, then it is not bound by the nondiscrimination statutes. The two categories feature definite inquiries and specific factors and, therefore, would provide more guidance to the lower courts than the vague recipient versus beneficiary standard currently in place. A categorical definition also would aid organizations like the NCAA in determining whether they qualify as statutory recipients. Moreover, the two categories would encompass some of the entities that the controlling authority theory sought to include, without also involving all of the negative consequences of that theory.