Background
During the legislative effort to enact the Civil Rights Act of 1964, "sex" was not among the categories the bill initially covered. In the House of Representatives, Southern opponents of the legislation, led by Reprensentative Howard Smith of Virginia, proposed adding "sex" to the original list (race, color, religion, or national origin). Smith had supported women's rights for decades, but others thought that the amendment would make the bill unacceptable its more moderate supporters and then lead to its defeat. Civil rights groups and even the American Association of University Women opposed the addition, but a coalition of conservative opponents of civil rights legislation and liberal civil rights advocates voted to include "sex." The bill thus eventually passed with the word.
Authorities charged with responsibility for enforcing the Civil Rights Act focused on racial discrimination and belittled sex-based discrimination. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), charged with enforcing the 1964 act, even decided in 1965 that segregated job advertising, "Help Wanted Male" and "Help Wanted Female," was permissible because it served "the convenience of readers". [1] Advocates frustrated with the acceptance of sex bias for women's rights founded the National Organization for Women (NOW) in June 1966. [2]
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., the head of the EEOC, counseled patience and pointed out that because of the way the word "sex" had been inserted into the legislation, the EEOC had no legislative history or testimony before Congressional committees to guide it through "a number of very serious problems of interpretation, implementation and jurisdiction." [3] NOW and other women's advocacy groups and the President's Citizens Advisory Group on the Status of Women urged President Lyndon Johnson to bring government policy with respect to sex discrimination into line with other forms of bias prevention. Assistant Secretary of Labor Esther Peterson lent support as well. [4] [5]
On the day that Johnson signed Executive Order 11375, John W. Macy. Jr., chairman of the Civil Service Commission, noted that women generated about a third of the complaints his agency received about unfair employment practices, although they represented a modest proportion of the federal workforce. He said women held 658 of the 23,000 jobs paying $18,000 annually, 74 of the 5,000 paying $20,000, 41 of the 2,300 paying $22,000, and 36 of the 17,000 paying $25,000. [5]
Enforcement
Lobbying of members of Congress on the part of women's groups, notably the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL), prompted a variety of government agencies to undertake their enforcement obligations. [4]
When the Labor Department issued details rules as provided for in this Executive Order on June 9, 1970, it defined contractors as any business enterprise with a government contract valued at $50,000 or more and 50 or more employees. Its Office of Federal Contract Compliance (OFCC) would oversee enforcement. [7] Labor's rules included a ban on advertising job openings under the headings "male" and "female" unless the applicant's sex was "a bona fide job qualification" and it banned restricting specific jobs or limiting seniority on the basis of sex. The rules had been recommended by the President's Task Force on Women's Rights and Responsibilities in December 1969. [8]
Despite the primary role given to Labor in the Executive Order, each agency of the federal government that entered into contracts had responsibility for compliance with OFCC regulations on the part of those who held its contracts. Labor designated the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as the compliance agency for institutions of higher learning. After HEW gathered statistics and discovered disparities in men's and women's wages and patterns of promotion in higher education, it established a special division devoted to investigating complaints against colleges and universities, the Office of Civil Rights [4] [9] and was assigning field staff as early as July 1968. [7] Discrimination in higher education was sufficiently highlighted that Congress addressed it in the Education Amendments of 1972, the landmark legislation known as Title IX.
Though OFCC regulations required the creation of "goals and timetables" for affirmative actions to remedy past discriminatory employment practices, government officials hesitated to apply them to sex as they did to race. Secretary of Labor James Hodgson told a group of ten advocates for women on July 25, 1970 that "employment problems of women are different". [10] He allowed that sex-based discrimination was "subtle and more pervasive than against any other minority group. [11] In response, women's groups mounted demonstrations in more than a dozen cities. [10] On July 31, Hodgson attempted to clarify his remarks, endorsing in principle the idea of "goals and timetables" for relieving sex discrimination, but saying that the procedures for establishing them with respect to other forms of discrimination were "not sufficient to meet the more difficult and elusive problem of sex discrimination." [12] He explained that: "The work force pattern of women and racial minorities differs in significant respects. Many women do not seek employment. Practically all adult males do. Many occupations sought after by all racial groups have not been sought by women in significant numbers." [11] He promised "immediate consultations" within two weeks with interested parties. [11] Advisory committees were set to meet in May 1971. [12]
Under the authority and direction of this Executive Order, the Civil Service Commission established the Federal Women's Program to implement programs to ensure women's employment and advancement in the federal workforce. [13]
This Executive Order provided the basis for the federal government's investigation of the hiring practices than 2,000 colleges and universities, following complaints in the spring of 1970 against 150 institutions by the WEAL and NOW. A government official said about a dozen had been denied funds for failing to comply with requests for employment records and that all but three eventually complied. Dr. Bernice Sandler of the Equity Action League commented: "After all, there are no Federal laws dealing with sex discrimination. That's why we are forcing the issue by filing complaints under the terms of the executive order." She said her organization had filed complaints against the California state system, Columbia University and others, and that investigations were active at Harvard University, Loyola of Chicago, George Washington University, and others. [9] [14] She explained that she had come upon the Executive Order accidentally: [15]
I was reading the 1965 Executive order and happened to see an asterisk. Since I am an academic person, I read the footnote and saw that the order was amended in 1968 [ sic ] to include women. A eureka-like alarm went off in my head and within months we filed charges against the University of Maryland.
By the late 1970s, the Carter administration was using the rules established under Executive Order 11375 against large businesses like Uniroyal, which had sex-segregated manufacturing facilities. Most companies went to court to obstruct the government's attempts to monitor and regulate their hiring practices and decisions. Only General Dynamics and United Airlines negotiated settlements. [16]
Title IX is a landmark federal civil rights law in the United States that was enacted as part of the Education Amendments of 1972. It prohibits sex-based discrimination in any school or any other education program that receives funding from the federal government. This is Public Law No. 92‑318, 86 Stat. 235, codified at 20 U.S.C. §§ 1681–1688.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act "remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history".
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) is legislation proposed in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or, depending on the version of the bill, gender identity, by employers with at least 15 employees.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, genetic information, and retaliation for participating in a discrimination complaint proceeding and/or opposing a discriminatory practice.
Equal pay for equal work is the concept of labour rights that individuals in the same workplace be given equal pay. It is most commonly used in the context of sexual discrimination, in relation to the gender pay gap. Equal pay relates to the full range of payments and benefits, including basic pay, non-salary payments, bonuses and allowances. Some countries have moved faster than others in addressing equal pay.
The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 is a United States labor law that forbids employment discrimination against anyone, at least 40 years of age, in the United States. In 1967, the bill was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The ADEA prevents age discrimination and provides equal employment opportunity under the conditions that were not explicitly covered in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act also applies to the standards for pensions and benefits provided by employers, and requires that information concerning the needs of older workers be provided to the general public.
Executive Order 11246 was an executive order of the Article II branch of the U.S. Federal government, in place from 1965 to 2025, specifying non-discriminatory practices and affirmative action in federal government hiring and employment.
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) is part of the U.S. Department of Labor. OFCCP is responsible for ensuring that employers doing business with the federal government comply with the laws and regulations requiring nondiscrimination. This mission is based on the underlying principle that employment opportunities generated by Federal dollars should be available to all Americans on an equitable and fair basis.
Employment discrimination is a form of illegal discrimination in the workplace based on legally protected characteristics. In the U.S., federal anti-discrimination law prohibits discrimination by employers against employees based on age, race, gender, sex, religion, national origin, and physical or mental disability. State and local laws often protect additional characteristics such as marital status, veteran status and caregiver/familial status. Earnings differentials or occupational differentiation—where differences in pay come from differences in qualifications or responsibilities—should not be confused with employment discrimination. Discrimination can be intended and involve disparate treatment of a group or be unintended, yet create disparate impact for a group.
The President's Commission on the Status of Women (PCSW) was established to advise the President of the United States on issues concerning the status of women. It was created by John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10980 signed December 14, 1961. In 1975 it became the National Association of Commissions for Women.
Equal employment opportunity is equal opportunity to attain or maintain employment in a company, organization, or other institution. Examples of legislation to foster it or to protect it from eroding include the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to assist in the protection of United States employees from discrimination. The law was the first federal law designed to protect most US employees from employment discrimination based on that employee's race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
In the United States, affirmative action consists of government-mandated, government-approved, and voluntary private programs granting special consideration to groups considered or classified as historically excluded, specifically racial minorities and women. These programs tend to focus on access to education and employment in order to redress the disadvantages associated with past and present discrimination. Another goal of affirmative action policies is to ensure that public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, are more representative of the populations they serve.
Employment discrimination law in the United States derives from the common law, and is codified in numerous state, federal, and local laws. These laws prohibit discrimination based on certain characteristics or "protected categories". The United States Constitution also prohibits discrimination by federal and state governments against their public employees. Discrimination in the private sector is not directly constrained by the Constitution, but has become subject to a growing body of federal and state law, including the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Federal law prohibits discrimination in a number of areas, including recruiting, hiring, job evaluations, promotion policies, training, compensation and disciplinary action. State laws often extend protection to additional categories or employers.
The Women's Equity Action League, or WEAL, was a United States women's rights organization founded in 1968 with the purpose of addressing discrimination against women in employment and education opportunities. Made up of conservative women, they used the court system to facilitate enforcing existing legislation. They are most known for filing cases against higher education institutions across the United States to address discriminatory hiring and promotion practices. They also successfully litigated over help-wanted advertisements being sex-segregated, extending military spousal benefits to husbands of female service personnel, and over the extent to which the Department of Defense could involve itself in the lives of military spouses.
The Paycheck Fairness Act is a proposed United States labor law that would add procedural protections to the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the Fair Labor Standards Act as part of an effort to address the gender pay gap in the United States. A Census Bureau report published in 2008 stated that women's median annual earnings were 77.5% of men's earnings. Recently this has narrowed, as by 2018, this was estimated to have decreased to women earning 80-85% of men's earnings. One study suggests that when the data is controlled for certain variables, the residual gap is around 5-7%; the same study concludes that the residual is because "hours of work in many occupations are worth more when given at particular moments and when the hours are more continuous. That is, in many occupations, earnings have a nonlinear relationship with respect to hours."
Bernice Resnick Sandler was an American women's rights activist. She is best known for being instrumental in the creation of Title IX, a portion of the Education Amendments of 1972, in conjunction with representatives Edith Green and Patsy Mink and Senator Birch Bayh in the 1970s. She has been called "the Godmother of Title IX" by The New York Times. Sandler wrote extensively about sexual and peer harassment towards women on campus, coining the phrase "the chilly campus climate".
LGBT employment discrimination in the United States is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is encompassed by the law's prohibition of employment discrimination on the basis of sex. Prior to the landmark cases Bostock v. Clayton County and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (2020), employment protections for LGBT people were patchwork; several states and localities explicitly prohibit harassment and bias in employment decisions on the basis of sexual orientation and/or gender identity, although some only cover public employees. Prior to the Bostock decision, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) interpreted Title VII to cover LGBT employees; the EEOC determined that transgender employees were protected under Title VII in 2012, and extended the protection to encompass sexual orientation in 2015.
Executive Order 13672, signed by U.S. President Barack Obama on July 21, 2014, amended two earlier executive orders to extend protection against discrimination in hiring and employment to additional classes. It prohibited discrimination in the civilian federal workforce on the basis of gender identity and in hiring by federal contractors on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity.
The legal and regulatory history of transgender and transsexual people in the United States begins in the 1960s. Such legislation covers federal, state, municipal, and local levels, as well as military justice. It reflects broader societal attitudes which have shifted significantly over time and have impacted legislative and judicial outcomes.
This is a Timeline of second-wave feminism, from its beginning in the mid-twentieth century, to the start of Third-wave feminism in the early 1990s.
