Form 5578 (Rev. 11-2019)
Page 3
(b) The school may use the broadcast
media to publicize its racially
nondiscriminatory policy if this use makes
such nondiscriminatory policy known to all
segments of the general community the
school serves. If this method is chosen, the
school must provide documentation that
the means by which this policy was
communicated to all segments of the
general community was reasonably
expected to be effective. In this case,
appropriate documentation would include
copies of the tapes or script used and
records showing that there was an
adequate number of announcements, that
they were made during hours when the
announcements were likely to be
communicated to all segments of the
general community, that they were of
sufficient duration to convey the message
clearly, and that they were broadcast on
radio or television stations likely to be
listened to by substantial numbers of
members of all racial segments of the
general community. Announcements must
be made during the period of the school’s
solicitation for students or, in the absence
of a solicitation program, during the
school’s registration period.
(c) The school may display a notice of its
racially nondiscriminatory policy on its
primary publicly accessible Internet
homepage at all times during its taxable
year (excluding temporary outages due to
website maintenance or technical
problems) in a manner reasonably
expected to be noticed by visitors to the
homepage. The notice used to satisfy the
publicity requirement under 1(a), above, is
acceptable. A publicly accessible
homepage is one that does not require a
visitor to input information, such as an
email address or a user name and
password, to access the homepage.
Factors to be considered in determining
whether the notice is reasonably expected
to be noticed by visitors to the homepage
include the size, color, and graphic
treatment of the notice in relation to other
parts of the homepage, whether the notice
is unavoidable, whether other parts of the
homepage distract attention from the
notice, and whether the notice is visible
without a visitor having to do anything
other than simple scrolling on the
homepage. A link on the homepage to
another page where the notice appears, or
a notice that appears in a carousel or only
by selecting a drop down or by hovering
(mouse over) is not acceptable. If a school
does not have its own website, but it has
web pages contained in a website, the
school must display a notice of its racially
nondiscriminatory policy on its primary
landing page within the website in a
manner that satisfies all other requirements
of this subsection 1(c) to use this
publication method.
Communication of a racially
nondiscriminatory policy as to students by
a school to leaders of racial groups as the
sole means of publicity generally will not
be considered effective to make the policy
known to all segments of the community.
2. The requirements of subsection 1 of
this section will not apply when one of the
following paragraphs applies:
(a) If for the preceding 3 years the
enrollment of a parochial or other church-
related school consists of students at least
75% of whom are members of the
sponsoring religious denomination or unit,
the school may make known its racially
nondiscriminatory policy in whatever
newspapers or circulars the religious
denomination or unit utilizes in the
communities from which the students are
drawn. These newspapers and circulars
may be those distributed by a particular
religious denomination or unit or by an
association that represents a number of
religious organizations of the same
denomination. If, however, the school
advertises in newspapers of general
circulation in the community or
communities from which its students are
drawn and paragraphs (b) and (c) of this
subsection are not applicable to it, then it
must comply with paragraph (a) of
subsection 1 of this section.
(b) If a school customarily draws a
substantial percentage of its students
nationwide or world-wide or from a large
geographic section or sections of the
United States and follows a racially
nondiscriminatory policy as to students, the
publicity requirement may be satisfied by
complying with section 4.02, supra. Such a
school may demonstrate that it follows a
racially nondiscriminatory policy within the
meaning of the preceding sentence either
by showing that it currently enrolls students
of racial minority groups in meaningful
numbers or, when minority students are not
enrolled in meaningful numbers, that its
promotional activities and recruiting efforts
in each geographic area were reasonably
designed to inform students of all racial
segments in the general communities within
the area of the availability of the school. The
question whether a school satisfies the
preceding sentence will be determined on
the basis of the facts and circumstances of
each case.
(c) If a school customarily draws its
students from local communities and follows
a racially nondiscriminatory policy as to
students, the publicity requirement may be
satisfied by complying with section 4.02,
supra. Such a school may demonstrate that it
follows a racially nondiscriminatory policy
within the meaning of the preceding sentence
by showing that it currently enrolls students
of racial minority groups in meaningful
numbers. The question whether a school
satisfies the preceding sentence will be
determined on the basis of the facts and
circumstances of each case. One of the facts
and circumstances that the Service will
consider is whether the school’s promotional
activities and recruiting efforts in each area
were reasonably designed to inform students
of all racial segments in the general
communities within the area of the availability
of the school.
The Service recognizes that the failure by
a school drawing its students from local
communities to enroll racial minority group
students may not necessarily indicate the
absence of a racially nondiscriminatory
policy as to students when there are
relatively few or no such students in these
communities. Actual enrollment is,
however, a meaningful indication of a
racially nondiscriminatory policy in a
community in which a public school or
schools became subject to a desegregation
order of a federal court or otherwise
expressly became obligated to implement a
desegregation plan under the terms of any
written contract or other commitment to
which any federal agency was a party.
The Service encourages schools to
satisfy the publicity requirement by the
methods described in subsection 1 of this
section, regardless of whether a school
considers itself within subsection 2,
because it believes these methods to be
the most effective to make known a
school’s racially nondiscriminatory policy.
In this regard it is each school’s
responsibility to determine whether
paragraph (a), (b), or (c) of subsection 2
applies to it. On audit, a school must be
prepared to demonstrate that the failure to
publish its racially nondiscriminatory policy
in accordance with subsection 1 of this
section was justified by the application to it
of paragraph (a), (b), or (c) of subsection 2.
Further, a school must be prepared to
demonstrate that it has publicly disavowed
or repudiated any statements purported to
have been made on its behalf (after
November 6, 1975) that are contrary to its
publicity of a racially nondiscriminatory
policy as to students, to the extent that the
school or its principal official were aware of
such statements.
Section 4.04, Facilities and Programs. A
school must be able to show that all of its
programs and facilities are operated in a
racially nondiscriminatory manner.
Section 4.05, Scholarship and Loan
Programs. As a general rule, all
scholarship or other comparable benefits
procurable for use at any given school
must be offered on a racially
nondiscriminatory basis. Their availability
on this basis must be known throughout
the general community being served by the
school and should be referred to in the
publicity required by this section in order
for that school to be considered racially
nondiscriminatory as to students,
scholarships and loans that are made
pursuant to financial assistance programs
favoring members of one or more racial
minority groups that are designed to
promote a school’s racially
nondiscriminatory policy will not adversely
affect the school’s exempt status. Financial
assistance programs favoring members of
one or more racial groups that do not
significantly derogate from the school’s
racially nondiscriminatory policy similarly
will not adversely affect the school’s
exempt status.