The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination based on race, religion, sex, national origin, and other characteristics illegal, and later sexual orientation and gender identity. In addition, unlike the Civil Rights Act, the ADA also requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to employees with disabilities, and imposes accessibility requirements on public accommodations.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Executive Order 10925, signed by President John F. Kennedy on March 6, 1961, required government contractors, except in special circumstances, to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin". It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (PCEEO), which was chaired by then Vice President Lyndon Johnson. Vice Chair and Secretary of Labor Arthur Goldberg was responsible for the "general supervision and direction" of the Committee's operations. Ten other senior executive appointees also sat on the Committee.
Executive Order 13087 was signed by U.S. President Bill Clinton on May 28, 1998, amending Executive Order 11478 to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in the competitive service of the federal civilian workforce. The order also applies to employees of the government of the District of Columbia, and the United States Postal Service. However, it does not apply to positions and agencies in the excepted service, such as the Central Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A protected group, protected class (US), or prohibited ground (Canada) is a category by which people are qualified for special protection by a law, policy, or similar authority. In Canada and the United States, the term is frequently used in connection with employees and employment and housing. Where illegal discrimination on the basis of protected group status is concerned, a single act of discrimination may be based on more than one protected class. For example, discrimination based on antisemitism may relate to religion, ethnicity, national origin, or any combination of the three; discrimination against a pregnant woman might be based on sex, marital status, or both.
Human resource management in public administration concerns human resource management as it applies specifically to the field of public administration. It is considered to be an in-house structure that ensures unbiased treatment, ethical standards, and promotes a value-based system.
Executive Order 11375, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 13, 1967, banned discrimination on the basis of sex in hiring and employment in both the United States federal workforce and on the part of government contractors.
The Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO) is an agency within the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. FHEO is responsible for administering and enforcing federal fair housing laws and establishing policies that make sure all Americans have equal access to the housing of their choice.
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.
Kylar William Broadus is an American attorney, entrepreneur, and transgender rights activist. He founded the Trans People of Color Coalition in 2010. In 2012, he became the first trans person to testify in front of the United States Senate when he spoke in support of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. He was a long-time professor of business law and workplace discrimination at Lincoln University, a historically black college.
Executive Order "Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity", is an executive order signed by Donald Trump, the 47th President of the United States, on January 21, 2025. The executive order instructs federal departments not to issue contracts to private organizations that enforce diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) frameworks. The order does not affect state or lower jurisdiction level DEIA related government contracting practices. It specifically prevents affirmative action from being implemented by government contractors. The order also revoked certain parts of the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) order that was signed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, as well as other orders, in terms of federal contracting jobs. The order also requests federal agencies to start an investigation on 9 publicly traded companies.
Executive Order 13152 amended Executive Order 11478 to add "status as a parent" to the list of categories and defined that term in detail. [7] 