Petitioner
United Steelworkers of America
Respondent
Brian Weber
Petitioner's Claim
That an affirmative action program implemented by Kaiser Aluminum, in voluntary agreement with the United Steelworkers, did not violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Michael E. Gottesman
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Michael R. Fontham
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), ThurgoodMarshall, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist (Lewis F. Powell, Jr. and John Paul Stevens did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
27 June 1979
Decision
Maintained the legality of the affirmative action plan, and reversed the ruling of two lower courts, which had held that the plan violated Title VII.
Significance
Fifteen years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and seven years after the implementation of affirmative action programs by the federal government, United Steelworkers of America v. Weber was the first Supreme Court case toaddress the issue of affirmative action in employment. Thus by definition itset a precedent, and the Court's ruling--that affirmative action programs were not in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act as long as private parties entered into such programs voluntarily--seemed to offer a satisfactorylitmus test for the legality of affirmative action programs in the workplace.For a few years, Court rulings would follow the pattern set in Weber.Eventually, however, it would appear in hindsight that the case had ultimately raised as many questions as it had settled.
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, together with the Voting RightsAct of 1965 and other key items of legislation, in an effort to redress severe and longstanding inequities between African Americans and whites in America. As their names suggested, these laws were concerned primarily with securing for all citizens--regardless of color--the basic rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. But the historic civil rights legislation of the mid-1960shad a secondary purpose, an economic one that was embodied in a statement made by President John F. Kennedy when he first introduced the Civil Rights Actin 1963: "There is little value in a Negro's obtaining the right to be admitted to hotels and restaurants if he has no cash in his pocket and no job." Inother words, elimination of "separate but equal" facilities such as "White" and "Colored" counters at eating establishments, or removal of the laws whichforced African American people to ride in the back of a bus, were not enoughin themselves. If the economic plight of African Americans remained such thatthey could not afford to eat at restaurants, or could not aspire to own their own cars (and thus were no longer forced to ride the bus, front seat or back), that meant that they had not yet begun to enjoy the same degree of economic freedom as whites.
Consequently, during Senate discussion of the Civil Rights Act in 1963, Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) sounded a note very much like that of the president: "What good does it do a Negro to be able to eat in a fine restaurant if hecannot afford to pay the bill? . . . Without a job, one cannot afford publicconvenience and accommodations." Out of this concern arose the idea of eliminating discrimination in the workplace, for which Humphrey made the case:
Hence the language of subsection 703(a) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act:
This was further reinforced in 703(d), which forbade employers, labor organizations, or any combination of the two controlling an apprenticeship or on-the-job training program to discriminate against any individual on the basis ofrace, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
In spite of its unambiguous language, however, within a short time it becameapparent that Title VII was not enough to combat deeply ingrained patterns ofdiscrimination in the workplace. This was the Supreme Court's attitude in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), in which it found that a company practice could be discriminatory even if the company did not intend to perpetuate racial imbalance by that policy. For instance, if a company had an open position for a skilled electrician, and freely accepted applications from bothAfrican American and white candidates, but African Americans had historicallybeen prohibited from obtaining instruction in the work performed by electricians, then discrimination would be perpetuated, whether or not company policyhad been made with that intention in mind. For this reason, in 1972 the federal government, under President Richard Nixon, enacted Executive Order 11246,which mandated a nationwide policy of affirmative action. Under the guidelines of this program, employers were encouraged to develop a racially balancedworkforce, with African Americans and other minorities represented in proportion to their numbers in the population as a whole.
The affirmative action plan challenged in Weber came into being two years after Executive Order 11246. In 1974, the United Steelworkers of Americaunion (USWA) entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Kaiser Aluminum Chemical Corporation. The nationwide agreement covered some 15 Kaiser plants, and among its provisions was an affirmative action plan. According to the plan, the company would set aside 50 percent of all openings in its in-plant craft training (i.e., apprenticeship) programs, until the percentage of African American craft workers was equivalent to the percentage of African Americans in the local labor population. At Kaiser's Gramercy, Louisiana plant, only 1.83 percent of all skilled workers were African American, despite the fact that the local labor force was 39 percent African American; hence the company's goal was to have African Americans in approximately 39 percent of its skilled positions. Therefore, in the plant's first year of operation, the company selected seven black and six white trainees for its craft program. The most senior of the African Americans selected had less seniority than several whites--among them Brian Weber--who were rejected for the training program.
Weber instituted a class action suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He charged that he and other white employees who were rejected in favor of African American applicants with less seniority had been discriminated against in violation of 703(a) and (d) of Title VII. The district court agreed, and the steelworkers union appealed the case. The Courtof Appeals of the Fifth Circuit, in a divided ruling, affirmed the judgment of the lower court. The court held that race-based employment preferences--even those established for the purposes of redressing past imbalances--were discriminatory in violation of Title VII.
The Court Reverses
The case went before the Supreme Court along with two related cases, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. v. Weber et al. and United States et al. v. Weber et al. These were attended by a flurry of amici curiae(friend of the court) briefs on both sides. Weighing in for the petitioners,the USWA, were groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a number of other unions. Clearly the case had generated a great deal of attention in the legal community, and among the attorneys filing briefs on the side of the petitioners were at least two who would become well-known in later decades: Vernon Jordan for the NAACP, and Gloria Allred for the Women's Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund. A much smaller group filed briefs on the side of the respondent, Weber, among them the California Correctional Officers Association, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, and the United States Justice Foundation.
After hearing arguments on 28 March 1979, the Supreme Court on 27 June reversed the ruling of the lower courts by a vote of 5-2. Writing for a majority that included Justices Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun, and himself, JusticeBrennan held that neither 703(a) or (d) prohibited race-based affirmative action programs entered into on a voluntary basis by private parties such as the USWA and Kaiser Aluminum.
Weber's case had relied on a literal interpretation of the Court's earlier ruling in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co. (1976), a reliance which the Court found was "misplaced." In McDonald, a case which did not involve affirmative action, the Court had ruled that Title VII did indeed protect whites as well as African Americans from certain forms of racial discrimination. But the situation in Weber was different, Brennan argued, because Kaiser and USWA had entered into their agreement on a voluntary basis.
Furthermore, the Court held, a closer look at 703(a) and (d) revealed that any interpretation of Title VII which completely eliminated race-based preferences would produce a result "completely at variance with the purpose of the statute." Given the fact that Congress's interest in enacting Title VII had resulted from concern over "the plight of the Negro in our economy," it should be clear that the language in it "was primarily addressed to the problem of opening opportunities for Negroes in occupations which have been traditionallyclosed to them." Brennan reinforced his finding on 703(a) and (d) by citing 703(j), which stated that Title VII "shall not be interpreted to require any employer . . . to grant preferential treatment . . . to any group because of .. . race." Race-based preference programs, then, were not to be required--but they could be permitted.
Justice Blackmun filed a concurring opinion. In it he stated that "additionalconsiderations . . . support the conclusion reached by the Court today." Hecited the dissent of Judge Wisdom on the court of appeals, who held that pastimbalances in its workforce indicated an "arguable violation" of Title VII on the part of Kaiser Aluminum; hence the affirmative action plan was a "reasonable response." Blackmun favored this more narrow approach, and in spite ofagreement with some of the misgivings stated by the dissenters, concurred with the opinion of the majority.
Is It 1984 Yet?
Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist dissented. Burger, in his opinion,agreed with the Court's judgment--"were I a Member of Congress considering aproposed amendment of Title VII." However, given the fact that they were notmaking legislation, but were members of the judicial branch of government interpreting a law originating in the legislative branch, he believed that their interpretation of Title VII overstepped the bounds established under the doctrine of the separation of powers. The Court was rewriting Title VII, he said, "to achieve what it regards as a desirable result." And this was unjustifiable, Burger stated, particularly because Title VII was unambiguous in its prohibition of all race-based discrimination. Burger acknowledged the "gross discriminations against minorities" as "one of the dark chapters in the otherwise great history of the American labor movement," and he agreed with all efforts toward voluntary compliance with Title VII. But he quoted Justice Benjamin Cardozo, who in 1921 warned against a "good result" achieved at the expenseof judicial honesty.
Rehnquist wrote his own dissenting opinion, in which Burger joined. He beganby making reference to 1984, George Orwell's novel depicting a futuristic police state which manipulates truth and language for its own purposes. The Court's ruling in Weber, Rehnquist argued, represented a similar disregard for truth, and he quipped that perhaps they should make it five yearslater, when it would truly be 1984. Title VII clearly stated that all formsof discrimination in the workplace were prohibited, a view that the Court hadaffirmed in Griggs v. Duke Power Company. Now the Court, like the all-powerful state in 1984, had suddenly reversed itself, and held that some forms of discrimination were appropriate. Rehnquist followed this with alengthy discussion of the steps by which Title VII had been passed into law,thereby demonstrating the unambiguous quality of both the language and the intent of that statute.
Impact
The question addressed in Weber, Justice Brennan stated, was a narrowone. For more than a century, a large portion of civil rights cases had involved questions of the Fourteenth Amendment; but since in this case no state was involved, the amendment did not apply. Rather, Weber was one of a growing list of civil rights cases testing an act of Congress rather than a constitutional amendment. With University of California v. Bakke the yearbefore and Fullilove v. Klutznick the year after, Weber was part of a series of cases that tested the problem of "reverse discrimination"--discrimination against the majority group in favor of the minority. With these three cases, the Court's pattern of protecting affirmative action, even atthe expense of apparent injustice to equally qualified white workers, students, or contractors, seemed to be established.
Yet in Firefighters Local Union No. 1784 v. Carl W. Stotts, et al. (1984), the Court struck down a lower court's ruling that a fire department laying off workers had to get rid of whites with relatively more seniority, instead of lay off African Americans who had been hired later through an affirmative action program. Title VII, the Court ruled, upheld seniority. In 1986, with Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, the Court reinforced its position in striking down a voluntary affirmative action program that would similarly have laid off more senior whites before less senior African Americans.
On the heels of Wygant, however, the Court upheld affirmative action in two other 1986 cases, Local Number 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Local Number 93, International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO C.L.C. v. City of Cleveland, et al. It reinforced its position in those cases, which had involvedaffirmative action for minorities, by its similar ruling in Johnson v. Transportation Agency (1987), a case which tested an affirmative action program for women.
Questions revolving around affirmative action and reverse discrimination, however, have remained controversial. In 1996, California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative, which forbade any forms of discrimination onthe basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The heated debates that followed, which resulted in a federal court's injunction postponingimplementation of the initiative until opponents had an opportunity to challenge it, promise another Supreme Court battle to come.
Related Cases
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the spiritof the act was to breakdown old patterns of racial segregation and social hierarchy.
Title VII of the act, an extensive source of employment rights, forbids discrimination based on an employee's color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. After 1972, the act applied to all employers or labor unions with 15 or more employees or members, to state and local governments, and to educationalinstitutions. The act created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate and prosecute discrimination violations. Its provisions did not apply to federal employees or American Indian tribes.
Additional wide ranging provisions prohibited discrimination in the use of public accommodations or facilities such as hotels, parks, restaurants, theaters, and gas stations. The act also protected an individual's voting rights anddirected the Department of Education to oversee school desegregation programs. Title VI authorized the government to cut-off federal funds to any publicor private program that did not end discriminatory practices. The act empowered each state attorney general to bring suit against any owner of a public accommodation who discriminated, and against any school system violating desegregation programs.
Sources
Abraham, Henry J. and Barbara A. Perry. Freedom & The Court: Civil Rights & Liberties in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
United Steelworkers of America
Respondent
Brian Weber
Petitioner's Claim
That an affirmative action program implemented by Kaiser Aluminum, in voluntary agreement with the United Steelworkers, did not violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Chief Lawyer for Petitioner
Michael E. Gottesman
Chief Lawyer for Respondent
Michael R. Fontham
Justices for the Court
Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), ThurgoodMarshall, Potter Stewart, Byron R. White
Justices Dissenting
Warren E. Burger, William H. Rehnquist (Lewis F. Powell, Jr. and John Paul Stevens did not participate)
Place
Washington, D.C.
Date of Decision
27 June 1979
Decision
Maintained the legality of the affirmative action plan, and reversed the ruling of two lower courts, which had held that the plan violated Title VII.
Significance
Fifteen years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and seven years after the implementation of affirmative action programs by the federal government, United Steelworkers of America v. Weber was the first Supreme Court case toaddress the issue of affirmative action in employment. Thus by definition itset a precedent, and the Court's ruling--that affirmative action programs were not in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act as long as private parties entered into such programs voluntarily--seemed to offer a satisfactorylitmus test for the legality of affirmative action programs in the workplace.For a few years, Court rulings would follow the pattern set in Weber.Eventually, however, it would appear in hindsight that the case had ultimately raised as many questions as it had settled.
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, together with the Voting RightsAct of 1965 and other key items of legislation, in an effort to redress severe and longstanding inequities between African Americans and whites in America. As their names suggested, these laws were concerned primarily with securing for all citizens--regardless of color--the basic rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. But the historic civil rights legislation of the mid-1960shad a secondary purpose, an economic one that was embodied in a statement made by President John F. Kennedy when he first introduced the Civil Rights Actin 1963: "There is little value in a Negro's obtaining the right to be admitted to hotels and restaurants if he has no cash in his pocket and no job." Inother words, elimination of "separate but equal" facilities such as "White" and "Colored" counters at eating establishments, or removal of the laws whichforced African American people to ride in the back of a bus, were not enoughin themselves. If the economic plight of African Americans remained such thatthey could not afford to eat at restaurants, or could not aspire to own their own cars (and thus were no longer forced to ride the bus, front seat or back), that meant that they had not yet begun to enjoy the same degree of economic freedom as whites.
Consequently, during Senate discussion of the Civil Rights Act in 1963, Senator Hubert Humphrey (D-MN) sounded a note very much like that of the president: "What good does it do a Negro to be able to eat in a fine restaurant if hecannot afford to pay the bill? . . . Without a job, one cannot afford publicconvenience and accommodations." Out of this concern arose the idea of eliminating discrimination in the workplace, for which Humphrey made the case:
No bill can or should lay claim to eliminating all of the causes andconsequences of racial and other types of discrimination . . . [but t]here isreason to believe . . . that national leadership provided by the enactment of Federal legislation dealing with the most troublesome problems will createan atmosphere conducive to voluntary or local resolution of other forms of discrimination.
Hence the language of subsection 703(a) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act:
. . . It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer (1) to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual . . . becauseof such individual's race . . . or (2) to limit, segregate, or classify hisemployees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tendto deprive any individual of equal opportunities . . . because of such individual's race . . .
This was further reinforced in 703(d), which forbade employers, labor organizations, or any combination of the two controlling an apprenticeship or on-the-job training program to discriminate against any individual on the basis ofrace, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
In spite of its unambiguous language, however, within a short time it becameapparent that Title VII was not enough to combat deeply ingrained patterns ofdiscrimination in the workplace. This was the Supreme Court's attitude in Griggs v. Duke Power Company (1971), in which it found that a company practice could be discriminatory even if the company did not intend to perpetuate racial imbalance by that policy. For instance, if a company had an open position for a skilled electrician, and freely accepted applications from bothAfrican American and white candidates, but African Americans had historicallybeen prohibited from obtaining instruction in the work performed by electricians, then discrimination would be perpetuated, whether or not company policyhad been made with that intention in mind. For this reason, in 1972 the federal government, under President Richard Nixon, enacted Executive Order 11246,which mandated a nationwide policy of affirmative action. Under the guidelines of this program, employers were encouraged to develop a racially balancedworkforce, with African Americans and other minorities represented in proportion to their numbers in the population as a whole.
The affirmative action plan challenged in Weber came into being two years after Executive Order 11246. In 1974, the United Steelworkers of Americaunion (USWA) entered into a collective bargaining agreement with Kaiser Aluminum Chemical Corporation. The nationwide agreement covered some 15 Kaiser plants, and among its provisions was an affirmative action plan. According to the plan, the company would set aside 50 percent of all openings in its in-plant craft training (i.e., apprenticeship) programs, until the percentage of African American craft workers was equivalent to the percentage of African Americans in the local labor population. At Kaiser's Gramercy, Louisiana plant, only 1.83 percent of all skilled workers were African American, despite the fact that the local labor force was 39 percent African American; hence the company's goal was to have African Americans in approximately 39 percent of its skilled positions. Therefore, in the plant's first year of operation, the company selected seven black and six white trainees for its craft program. The most senior of the African Americans selected had less seniority than several whites--among them Brian Weber--who were rejected for the training program.
Weber instituted a class action suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He charged that he and other white employees who were rejected in favor of African American applicants with less seniority had been discriminated against in violation of 703(a) and (d) of Title VII. The district court agreed, and the steelworkers union appealed the case. The Courtof Appeals of the Fifth Circuit, in a divided ruling, affirmed the judgment of the lower court. The court held that race-based employment preferences--even those established for the purposes of redressing past imbalances--were discriminatory in violation of Title VII.
The Court Reverses
The case went before the Supreme Court along with two related cases, Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp. v. Weber et al. and United States et al. v. Weber et al. These were attended by a flurry of amici curiae(friend of the court) briefs on both sides. Weighing in for the petitioners,the USWA, were groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), theNational Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a number of other unions. Clearly the case had generated a great deal of attention in the legal community, and among the attorneys filing briefs on the side of the petitioners were at least two who would become well-known in later decades: Vernon Jordan for the NAACP, and Gloria Allred for the Women's Equal Rights Legal Defense and Education Fund. A much smaller group filed briefs on the side of the respondent, Weber, among them the California Correctional Officers Association, the Southeastern Legal Foundation, and the United States Justice Foundation.
After hearing arguments on 28 March 1979, the Supreme Court on 27 June reversed the ruling of the lower courts by a vote of 5-2. Writing for a majority that included Justices Stewart, White, Marshall, Blackmun, and himself, JusticeBrennan held that neither 703(a) or (d) prohibited race-based affirmative action programs entered into on a voluntary basis by private parties such as the USWA and Kaiser Aluminum.
Weber's case had relied on a literal interpretation of the Court's earlier ruling in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co. (1976), a reliance which the Court found was "misplaced." In McDonald, a case which did not involve affirmative action, the Court had ruled that Title VII did indeed protect whites as well as African Americans from certain forms of racial discrimination. But the situation in Weber was different, Brennan argued, because Kaiser and USWA had entered into their agreement on a voluntary basis.
Furthermore, the Court held, a closer look at 703(a) and (d) revealed that any interpretation of Title VII which completely eliminated race-based preferences would produce a result "completely at variance with the purpose of the statute." Given the fact that Congress's interest in enacting Title VII had resulted from concern over "the plight of the Negro in our economy," it should be clear that the language in it "was primarily addressed to the problem of opening opportunities for Negroes in occupations which have been traditionallyclosed to them." Brennan reinforced his finding on 703(a) and (d) by citing 703(j), which stated that Title VII "shall not be interpreted to require any employer . . . to grant preferential treatment . . . to any group because of .. . race." Race-based preference programs, then, were not to be required--but they could be permitted.
Justice Blackmun filed a concurring opinion. In it he stated that "additionalconsiderations . . . support the conclusion reached by the Court today." Hecited the dissent of Judge Wisdom on the court of appeals, who held that pastimbalances in its workforce indicated an "arguable violation" of Title VII on the part of Kaiser Aluminum; hence the affirmative action plan was a "reasonable response." Blackmun favored this more narrow approach, and in spite ofagreement with some of the misgivings stated by the dissenters, concurred with the opinion of the majority.
Is It 1984 Yet?
Chief Justice Burger and Justice Rehnquist dissented. Burger, in his opinion,agreed with the Court's judgment--"were I a Member of Congress considering aproposed amendment of Title VII." However, given the fact that they were notmaking legislation, but were members of the judicial branch of government interpreting a law originating in the legislative branch, he believed that their interpretation of Title VII overstepped the bounds established under the doctrine of the separation of powers. The Court was rewriting Title VII, he said, "to achieve what it regards as a desirable result." And this was unjustifiable, Burger stated, particularly because Title VII was unambiguous in its prohibition of all race-based discrimination. Burger acknowledged the "gross discriminations against minorities" as "one of the dark chapters in the otherwise great history of the American labor movement," and he agreed with all efforts toward voluntary compliance with Title VII. But he quoted Justice Benjamin Cardozo, who in 1921 warned against a "good result" achieved at the expenseof judicial honesty.
Rehnquist wrote his own dissenting opinion, in which Burger joined. He beganby making reference to 1984, George Orwell's novel depicting a futuristic police state which manipulates truth and language for its own purposes. The Court's ruling in Weber, Rehnquist argued, represented a similar disregard for truth, and he quipped that perhaps they should make it five yearslater, when it would truly be 1984. Title VII clearly stated that all formsof discrimination in the workplace were prohibited, a view that the Court hadaffirmed in Griggs v. Duke Power Company. Now the Court, like the all-powerful state in 1984, had suddenly reversed itself, and held that some forms of discrimination were appropriate. Rehnquist followed this with alengthy discussion of the steps by which Title VII had been passed into law,thereby demonstrating the unambiguous quality of both the language and the intent of that statute.
Impact
The question addressed in Weber, Justice Brennan stated, was a narrowone. For more than a century, a large portion of civil rights cases had involved questions of the Fourteenth Amendment; but since in this case no state was involved, the amendment did not apply. Rather, Weber was one of a growing list of civil rights cases testing an act of Congress rather than a constitutional amendment. With University of California v. Bakke the yearbefore and Fullilove v. Klutznick the year after, Weber was part of a series of cases that tested the problem of "reverse discrimination"--discrimination against the majority group in favor of the minority. With these three cases, the Court's pattern of protecting affirmative action, even atthe expense of apparent injustice to equally qualified white workers, students, or contractors, seemed to be established.
Yet in Firefighters Local Union No. 1784 v. Carl W. Stotts, et al. (1984), the Court struck down a lower court's ruling that a fire department laying off workers had to get rid of whites with relatively more seniority, instead of lay off African Americans who had been hired later through an affirmative action program. Title VII, the Court ruled, upheld seniority. In 1986, with Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, the Court reinforced its position in striking down a voluntary affirmative action program that would similarly have laid off more senior whites before less senior African Americans.
On the heels of Wygant, however, the Court upheld affirmative action in two other 1986 cases, Local Number 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Local Number 93, International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO C.L.C. v. City of Cleveland, et al. It reinforced its position in those cases, which had involvedaffirmative action for minorities, by its similar ruling in Johnson v. Transportation Agency (1987), a case which tested an affirmative action program for women.
Questions revolving around affirmative action and reverse discrimination, however, have remained controversial. In 1996, California voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative, which forbade any forms of discrimination onthe basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. The heated debates that followed, which resulted in a federal court's injunction postponingimplementation of the initiative until opponents had an opportunity to challenge it, promise another Supreme Court battle to come.
Related Cases
- Griggs v. Duke Power Company, 401 U.S. 424 (1971).
- McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transp. Co., 427 U.S. 273 (1976).
- Regents of University of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265 (1978).
- Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448 (1980).
- Firefighters Local Union No. 1784 v. Stotts, 467 U.S. 561 (1984).
- Local Number 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers' International v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 478 U.S. 421 (1986).
- Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U.S. 267 (1986).
- Local Number 93, International Association of Firefighters, AFL-CIO C.L.C. v. City of Cleveland, et al., 478 U.S. 501 (1986).
- Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616 (1987).
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the most comprehensive civil rights legislation in U.S. history. Proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the spiritof the act was to breakdown old patterns of racial segregation and social hierarchy.
Title VII of the act, an extensive source of employment rights, forbids discrimination based on an employee's color, race, national origin, religion, or sex. After 1972, the act applied to all employers or labor unions with 15 or more employees or members, to state and local governments, and to educationalinstitutions. The act created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to investigate and prosecute discrimination violations. Its provisions did not apply to federal employees or American Indian tribes.
Additional wide ranging provisions prohibited discrimination in the use of public accommodations or facilities such as hotels, parks, restaurants, theaters, and gas stations. The act also protected an individual's voting rights anddirected the Department of Education to oversee school desegregation programs. Title VI authorized the government to cut-off federal funds to any publicor private program that did not end discriminatory practices. The act empowered each state attorney general to bring suit against any owner of a public accommodation who discriminated, and against any school system violating desegregation programs.
Sources
Abraham, Henry J. and Barbara A. Perry. Freedom & The Court: Civil Rights & Liberties in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
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