Workplace sexual harassment is illegal. But how prevalent is it? And how costly are legal fees, lost productivity, and other consequences? We found few reliable nationwide estimates across workplaces. Experts say recurring national surveys would help answer these questions. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission collects data on sexual harassment claims but can't fully analyze the problem. Sp...

The Department of Education requires public school districts to biennially report incidents of restraint (restricting a student’s movement) and seclusion (confining a student to a space alone). Education’s data quality checks may not catch misreporting or statistical outliers: 70% of districts reported 0 incidents of restraint and seclusion, but Education’s quality check only applies to fe...

Alternative schools may offer a different educational approach to serve expelled students or others whose needs typically can’t be met in a regular school. We looked at how 15 states hold alternative schools accountable for academic performance. All 15 states used at least one indicator that researchers and studies consider useful for assessing alternative schools. For example, 11 states used c...

Religious-based hate crimes are on the rise on America’s college campuses, according to data from the Departments of Education and Justice. DOJ offers publications, webpages, and educational activities to help colleges and campus law enforcement monitor and address these crimes. However, much of DOJ’s information is outdated and difficult to find in one place. In addition, many colleges are u...

Environmental justice seeks to address the disproportionately high health and environmental risks found among low-income and minority communities by seeking their fair treatment and involvement in environmental policy. California's mostly minority and low-income community of West Oakland, for example, is surrounded by 3 freeways and a port. Its residents are exposed to diesel air pollution 3 times...

We assessed whether there are racial or gender disparities in the military justice system. Among other things, we found Blacks, Hispanics, and males were more likely than Whites or females to be tried in general and special courts-martial in all military services Race was not a statistically significant factor in the likelihood of conviction in general and special courts-martial The services d...

The two databases maintained by the Department of the Interior's (Interior) Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) include some data fields useful for identifying tribal roads eligible for federal funding, but other fields may be too inaccurate to be useful for performance reporting and oversight. Specifically, the National Tribal Transportation Facility Inventory (NTTFI) provides useful data for identify...

Three of the six federal grant-making agencies we reviewed that support research in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields—the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agriculture—routinely collect demographic information about the individual researchers who apply for and receive federal g...

On the basis of analyzing Social Security Administration (SSA) data on individuals who were Disability Insurance (DI) beneficiaries as of December 2010 and earnings data from the National Directory of New Hires (NDNH), GAO estimates that SSA made $1.29 billion in potential cash benefit overpayments to about 36,000 individuals as of January 2013. The exact number of individuals who received imprope...

GAO identified four methods the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), within the U.S. Department of Transportation, uses to assure that recipients of federal transit funding comply with civil rights requirements: 1) requiring recipients to self-certify that they assure compliance with applicable civil rights requirements; 2) issuing guidance to inform recipients of their responsibilities; 3) admin...