Legislative · Federal
The GI Bill's benefits are systematically denied to Black veterans
- Direction
- -1 — harm to Freedmen
- Force
- 1.00 — enacted, vetoed, or final
- Status
- Decided
- Date
- 1944-06-22
Why this rating
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill), signed June 22, 1944, was race-neutral in text but administered locally in ways that denied its education and housing benefits to the overwhelming majority of the 1.2 million Black WWII veterans — who in that era were almost entirely descendants of the enslaved. Rated -1: the harm ran through discriminatory administration rather than the statute itself, but it measurably widened the wealth and education gap for the lineage.
Summary
The Servicemen's Readjustment Act (GI Bill), signed June 22, 1944, was race-neutral in text but administered locally in ways that denied its education and housing benefits to the overwhelming majority of the 1.2 million Black WWII veterans — who in that era were almost entirely descendants of the enslaved. Rated -1: the harm ran through discriminatory administration rather than the statute itself, but it measurably widened the wealth and education gap for the lineage.
Sources
- How the GI Bill's Promise Was Denied to a Million Black WWII Veterans — HISTORY — official record · primary · historical
Rated under the published impact rubric. Direction records what a measure would do if fully effective; force records how far it has actually travelled. Neither is inferred — both trace to the sources above. Think something here is wrong? Tell us and we will log the correction.