[July 03, 2014] Yesterday, I missed a very important date. Fifty years ago, on July 2, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act.1 While the entire Act is important, Title VII Equal Employment Opportunity is the part most commonly cited and the core of the Act. The signing of the Act was conducted with much fanfare but not without considerable resistance and controversy.
Section 703(e) is a critical part of the Act and I have reproduced that section in its entirety. I have bolded a key section. There are people today who say several institutions are in violation of Title VII, yet nothing is being done because it is “inconvenient”.
Signing of the Civil Rights Act: July 2, 1964
Nothing contained in this title shall be interpreted to require any employer, employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee subject to this title to grant preferential treatment to any individual or to any group because of the race, color, religion, sex, or national origin of such individual or group on account of an imbalance which may exist with respect to the total number or percentage of persons of any race, color, religion, sex, or national origin employed by any employer, referred or classified for employment by any employment agency or labor organization, admitted to membership or classified by any labor organization, or admitted to, or employed in, any apprenticeship or other training program, in comparison with the total number or percentage of persons of such race, color, religion, sex, or national origin in any community, State, section, or other area, or in the available work force in any community, State, section, or other area.
Today, we celebrate the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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[1] http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/johnson-signs-civil-rights-act
Some good websites the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm
http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/cor/coord/titlevi.php
http://www.nps.gov/subjects/civilrights/1964-civil-rights-act.htm
http://civil.laws.com/civil-rights-act-of-1964