The
Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation. It ended unequal application of voter registration requirements and
racial segregationRacial segregation is the separation of humans into racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a public toilet, attending school, going to the movies, or in the rental or purchase of a home...
in schools, at the workplace and by facilities that served the general public ("public accommodations").
Powers given to enforce the act were initially weak, but were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the
United States ConstitutionThe Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce under
Article OneArticle One of the United States Constitution describes the powers of Congress, the legislative branch of the federal government. The Article establishes the powers of and limitations on the Congress, consisting of a House of Representatives composed of Representatives, with each state gaining or...
(section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment and its duty to protect voting rights under the
Fifteenth AmendmentThe Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits each government in the United States from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizen's "race, color, or previous condition of servitude"...
. The Act was signed into
lawLaw is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
by
PresidentThe President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
, who would later sign the landmark
Voting Rights ActThe Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of national legislation in the United States that outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Americans in the U.S....
into law.
Origins
The bill was called for by President
John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
in his civil rights speech of June 11, 1963, in which he asked for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments," as well as "greater protection for the right to vote." Kennedy delivered this speech following a series of protests from the African-American community, the most concurrent being the
Birmingham campaignThe Birmingham campaign was a strategic movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to bring attention to the unequal treatment that black Americans endured in Birmingham, Alabama...
which concluded in May 1963.
Emulating the
Civil Rights Act of 1875The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a United States federal law proposed by Senator Charles Sumner and Representative Benjamin F. Butler in 1870...
, Kennedy's civil rights bill included provisions to ban discrimination in public accommodations, and to enable the
U.S. Attorney GeneralThe United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...
to join in lawsuits against state governments which operated segregated school systems, among other provisions. However, it did not include a number of provisions deemed essential by civil rights leaders including protection against police brutality, ending discrimination in private employment, or granting the Justice Department power to initiate desegregation or job discrimination lawsuits.
Committee & Passage in the House of Representatives
The bill was sent to the
House of RepresentativesThe United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
, and referred to the
House Judiciary CommitteeThe U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement...
, chaired by Emmanuel Celler, a Democrat from
New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. After a series of hearings on the bill, Celler's committee strengthened the act, adding provisions to ban racial discrimination in employment, providing greater protection to black voters, eliminating segregation in all publicly owned facilities (not just schools), and strengthening the anti-segregation clauses regarding public facilities such as lunch counters. They also added authorization for the Attorney General to file lawsuits to protect individuals against the deprivation of any rights secured by the Constitution or U.S. law. In essence, this was the controversial "Title III" that had been removed from the
1957The Civil Rights Act of 1957, , primarily a voting rights bill, was the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress in the United States since Reconstruction following the American Civil War.Following the historic US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v...
and
1960The Civil Rights Act of 1960 was a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration rolls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote or to vote...
Acts. Civil rights organizations pressed hard for this provision because it could be used to protect peaceful protesters and black voters from police brutality and suppression of free speech rights.
Kennedy called the congressional leaders to the White House in late October, 1963 to line up the necessary votes in the House for passage. The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963, and referred to the
Rules CommitteeThe Committee on Rules, or Rules Committee, is a committee of the United States House of Representatives. Rather than being responsible for a specific area of policy, as most other committees are, it is in charge of determining under what rule other bills will come to the floor...
, whose chairman,
Howard W. SmithHoward Worth Smith , Democratic U.S. Representative from Virginia, was a leader of the conservative coalition who supported both racial segregation and women's rights.-Early life and education:...
, a Democrat and avid segregationist from
VirginiaThe Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely.
Johnson and passage
In late November 1963 the
assassination of John F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, was assassinated at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas...
changed the political situation. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, utilized his experience in legislative politics and the
bully pulpitA bully pulpit is a public office or other position of authority of sufficiently high rank that provides the holder with an opportunity to speak out and be listened to on any matter...
he wielded as president in support of the bill. In his first address to Congress on November 27, 1963, Johnson told the legislators, "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long."
Chairman Celler filed a petition to discharge the bill from the Committee; it required a majority to move the bill to the floor. Initially Celler had a difficult time acquiring the signatures necessary, as even many congressmen who supported the civil rights bill itself were cautious about violating House procedure with the discharge petition. By the time of the 1963 winter recess, 50 signatures were still needed.
On the return of Congress from the winter recess, however, it became apparent that public opinion in the North favored the bill and the petition would acquire the necessary signatures. To prevent the humiliation of the success of the petition, Chairman Smith allowed the bill to pass through the Rules Committee. The bill was brought to a vote in the House on February 10, 1964, and passed by a vote of 290 to 130, and sent to the Senate.
Passage in the Senate
Johnson, who wanted the bill passed as soon as possible, ensured that the bill would be quickly considered by the
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
. Normally, the bill would have been referred to the
Senate Judiciary CommitteeThe United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges nominated by the...
, chaired by Senator James O. Eastland,
DemocratThe Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
from
MississippiMississippi is a U.S. state located in the Southern United States. Jackson is the state capital and largest city. The name of the state derives from the Mississippi River, which flows along its western boundary, whose name comes from the Ojibwe word misi-ziibi...
. Given Eastland's firm opposition, it seemed impossible that the bill would reach the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader
Mike MansfieldMichael Joseph Mansfield was an American Democratic politician and the longest-serving Majority Leader of the United States Senate, serving from 1961 to 1977. He also served as United States Ambassador to Japan for over ten years...
took a novel approach to prevent the bill from being relegated to Judiciary Committee limbo. Having initially waived a second reading of the bill, which would have led to it being immediately referred to Judiciary, Mansfield gave the bill a second reading on February 26, 1964, and then proposed, in the absence of precedent for instances when a second reading did not immediately follow the first, that the bill bypass the Judiciary Committee and immediately be sent to the Senate floor for debate. Although this parliamentary move led to a
filibusterA filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure. Specifically, it is the right of an individual to extend debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal...
, the senators eventually let it pass, preferring to concentrate their resistance on passage of the bill itself.
The bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964 and the "Southern Bloc" of 18 southern Democratic Senators and one Republican Senator led by
Richard RussellRichard Brevard Russell, Jr. was a Democratic Party politician from the southeastern state of Georgia. He served as state governor from 1931 to 1933 and United States senator from 1933 to 1971....
(D-GA) launched a filibuster to prevent its passage. Said Russell: "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about
social equalitySocial equality is a social state of affairs in which all people within a specific society or isolated group have the same status in a certain respect. At the very least, social equality includes equal rights under the law, such as security, voting rights, freedom of speech and assembly, and the...
and
intermingling and amalgamation of the racesMiscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
in our (Southern) states."
The most fervent opposition to the bill came from Senator
Strom ThurmondJames Strom Thurmond was an American politician who served as a United States Senator. He also ran for the Presidency of the United States in 1948 as the segregationist States Rights Democratic Party candidate, receiving 2.4% of the popular vote and 39 electoral votes...
(D-SC): "This so-called Civil Rights Proposals, which the President has sent to Capitol Hill for enactment into law, are unconstitutional, unnecessary, unwise and extend beyond the realm of reason. This is the worst civil-rights package ever presented to the Congress and is reminiscent of the Reconstruction proposals and actions of the radical Republican Congress."
After 54 days of filibuster, Senators
Everett DirksenEverett McKinley Dirksen was an American politician of the Republican Party. He represented Illinois in the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate...
(R-IL),
Thomas KuchelThomas Henry Kuchel was a moderate Republican U.S. Senator from California. From 1959 to 1969 he was the minority whip in the Senate, where he was the co-manager on the floor for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.-Biography:Kuchel was born in Anaheim in Orange County,...
(R-CA),
Hubert HumphreyHubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
(D-MN), and
Mike MansfieldMichael Joseph Mansfield was an American Democratic politician and the longest-serving Majority Leader of the United States Senate, serving from 1961 to 1977. He also served as United States Ambassador to Japan for over ten years...
(D-MT) introduced a substitute bill that they hoped would attract enough Republican swing votes to end the filibuster. The compromise bill was weaker than the House version in regard to government power to regulate the conduct of private business, but it was not so weak as to cause the House to reconsider the legislation.
On the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator
Robert ByrdRobert Carlyle Byrd was a United States Senator from West Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959 and as a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010...
(D-W.Va.) completed a filibustering address that he had begun 14 hours and 13 minutes earlier opposing the legislation. Until then, the measure had occupied the Senate for 57 working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the bill's manager, concluded he had the 67 votes required at that time to end the debate and end the filibuster. With six wavering senators providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71 to 29. Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the 37 years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.
On June 19, the substitute (compromise) bill passed the Senate by a vote of 71–29, and quickly passed through the House-Senate
conference committeeA conference committee is a committee of the Congress appointed by the House of Representatives and Senate to resolve disagreements on a particular bill...
, which adopted the Senate version of the bill. The conference bill was passed by both houses of Congress, and was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964.
Vote totals
Totals are in "
Yea-
Nay" format:
- The original House version: 290-130 (69%–31%).
- Cloture in the Senate: 71-29 (71%–29%).
- The Senate version: 73-27 (73%–27%).
- The Senate version, as voted on by the House: 289-126 (70%–30%).
By party
The original House version:
- Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%)
- Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
Cloture in the Senate:
- Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%–34%)
- Republican Party: 27-6 (82%–18%)
The Senate version:
- Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%–31%)
- Republican Party: 27-6 (82%–18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:
- Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%–37%)
- Republican Party: 136-35 (80%–20%)
By party and region
Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the
Confederate States of AmericaThe Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
in the
American Civil WarThe American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.
The original House version:
- Southern Democrats: 7–87 (7%–93%)
- Southern Republicans: 0–10 (0%–100%)
- Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%–6%)
- Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%–15%)
The Senate version:
- Southern Democrats: 1–20 (5%–95%)
- Southern Republicans: 0–1 (0%–100%)
- Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%–2%)
- Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%–16%)
Women's rights
Just one year prior, the same Congress had passed the
Equal Pay Act of 1963The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex . It was signed into law on June 10, 1963 by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program...
, which prohibited wage differentials based on sex.
The prohibition on sex discrimination was added by
Howard W. SmithHoward Worth Smith , Democratic U.S. Representative from Virginia, was a leader of the conservative coalition who supported both racial segregation and women's rights.-Early life and education:...
, a powerful Virginian Democrat who chaired the House Rules Committee and who had strongly opposed the Civil Rights Act. Smith's amendment was passed by a teller vote of 168 to 133. Historians debate Smith's motivation—was it a
cynical attempt to defeat the billIn legislative debate, a wrecking amendment is an amendment made by a legislator who disagrees with the principles of a bill and who seeks to make it useless rather than directly opposing the bill by simply voting...
by someone opposed to both civil rights for blacks and women, or did he support women's rights and was attempting to improve the bill by broadening it to include women? Smith expected that Republicans, who had included equal rights for women in their party's platform since 1944, would probably vote for the amendment. Historians speculate that Smith was trying to embarrass northern Democrats who opposed civil rights for women because the clause was opposed by labor unions. Representative
Carl ElliottCarl Atwood Elliott was a U.S. Congressman from the state of Alabama. He was elected to eight consecutive terms in office, serving from January 1949 to January 1965....
of Alabama later claimed, "Smith didn't give a damn about women's rights...he was trying to knock off votes either then or down the line because there was always a hard core of men who didn't favor women's rights," and the
Congressional RecordThe Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates of the United States Congress. It is published by the United States Government Printing Office, and is issued daily when the United States Congress is in session. Indexes are issued approximately every two weeks...
records that Smith was greeted by laughter when he introduced the amendment.
Smith asserted that he was not joking; he sincerely supported the amendment and, indeed, along with Rep.
Martha GriffithsMartha Wright Griffiths was an American lawyer and judge before being elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1954. Griffiths was the first woman to serve on the powerful House Committee on Ways and Means and the first woman elected to the United States Congress from Michigan as...
, he was the chief spokesperson for the amendment. For twenty years Smith had sponsored the Equal Rights Amendment (with no linkage to racial issues) in the House because he believed in it. He for decades had been close to the
National Woman's PartyThe National Woman's Party , was a women's organization founded by Alice Paul in 1915 that fought for women's rights during the early 20th century in the United States, particularly for the right to vote on the same terms as men...
and its leader
Alice PaulAlice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...
, one of the leaders in winning the vote for women back in 1920 and the chief supporter of equal rights proposals since then. She and other feminists had worked with Smith since 1945 trying to find a way to include sex as a protected civil rights category. Now was the moment. Griffiths argued that the new law would protect black women but not white women, and that was unfair to white women. Furthermore, she argued that the laws "protecting" women from unpleasant jobs were actually designed to enable men to monopolize those jobs, and that was unfair to women who were not allowed to try out for those jobs. The amendment passed with the votes of Republicans and Southern Democrats. The final law passed with the votes of Republicans and Northern Democrats. Thus, as Justice
William RehnquistWilliam Hubbs Rehnquist was an American lawyer, jurist, and political figure who served as an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States and later as the 16th Chief Justice of the United States...
explained in
Meritor Savings Bank v. VinsonMeritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 , marked the United States Supreme Court's recognition of certain forms of sexual harassment as a violation of Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, and established the standards for analyzing whether conduct was unlawful and when an employer would be...
, “The prohibition against discrimination based on sex was added to Title VII at the last minute on the floor of the House of Representatives...the bill quickly passed as amended, and we are left with little legislative history to guide us in interpreting the Act’s prohibition against discrimination based on ‘sex.’”
Desegregation
One of the most "damaging" arguments by the bill's opponents was that once passed, the bill would require forced busing to achieve certain
racial quotasRacial quotas in employment and education are numerical requirements for hiring, promoting, admitting and/or graduating members of a particular racial group. Racial quotas are often established as means of diminishing racial discrimination, addressing under-representation and evident racism against...
in schools. Proponents of the bill, such as
Emanuel CellerEmanuel Celler was an American politician from New York who served in the United States House of Representatives for almost 50 years, from March 1923 to January 1973. He was a member of the Democratic Party.-Early life:...
and Jacob Javits, said that the bill would not authorize such measures. Leading sponsor
Hubert HumphreyHubert Horatio Humphrey, Jr. , served under President Lyndon B. Johnson as the 38th Vice President of the United States. Humphrey twice served as a United States Senator from Minnesota, and served as Democratic Majority Whip. He was a founder of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and...
wrote two amendments specifically designed to outlaw busing. Humphrey said "if the bill were to compel it, it would be a violation [of the Constitution], because it would be handling the matter on the basis of race and we would be transporting children because of race." While Javits said any government official who sought to use the bill for busing purposes "would be making a fool of himself," two years later the Department of Health, Education and Welfare said that Southern school districts would be required to meet mathematical ratios of students by busing.
Political repercussions
The bill divided and engendered a long-term change in the demographics of both parties. President Johnson realized that supporting this bill would risk losing the South's overwhelming support of the Democratic Party. Both Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Vice President Johnson had pushed for the introduction of the civil rights legislation. Johnson told Kennedy aide
Ted SorensenTheodore Chaikin "Ted" Sorensen was an American presidential advisor, lawyer and writer, best known as President John F. Kennedy’s special counsel, adviser and legendary speechwriter. President Kennedy once called him his “intellectual blood bank.”-Early life:Sorensen was born in Nebraska, the son...
that "I know the risks are great and we might lose the South, but those sorts of states may be lost anyway." Senator
Richard Russell, Jr.Richard Brevard Russell, Jr. was a Democratic Party politician from the southeastern state of Georgia. He served as state governor from 1931 to 1933 and United States senator from 1933 to 1971....
warned President Johnson that his strong support for the civil rights bill "will not only cost you the South, it will cost you the election." Johnson, however, went on to win the 1964 election by one of the biggest landslides in American history. The South, which had started to vote increasingly Republican beginning in the 1930s, continued that trend, becoming the stronghold of the Republican party by the 1990s. Political scientists Richard Johnston and Byron Schafer have argued that this development was based more on economics than on race.
Although majorities in both parties voted for the bill, there were notable exceptions.
RepublicanThe Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
senator
Barry GoldwaterBarry Morris Goldwater was a five-term United States Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's nominee for President in the 1964 election. An articulate and charismatic figure during the first half of the 1960s, he was known as "Mr...
of Arizona voted against the bill, remarking, "You can't legislate morality." Goldwater had supported previous attempts to pass Civil Rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 as well as the 24th Amendment outlawing the
poll taxA poll tax is a tax of a portioned, fixed amount per individual in accordance with the census . When a corvée is commuted for cash payment, in effect it becomes a poll tax...
. The reason for his opposition to the 1964 bill was Title II, which he viewed as a violation of individual liberty. Most Democrats from the Southern states opposed the bill and led an unsuccessful 83-day filibuster, including Senators
Albert Gore, Sr.Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Sr. was an American politician, serving as a U.S. Representative and a U.S. Senator for the Democratic Party from Tennessee....
(D-TN),
J. William FulbrightJames William Fulbright was a United States Senator representing Arkansas from 1945 to 1975.Fulbright was a Southern Democrat and a staunch multilateralist who supported the creation of the United Nations and the longest serving chairman in the history of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee...
(D-AR), and
Robert ByrdRobert Carlyle Byrd was a United States Senator from West Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Byrd served as a U.S. Representative from 1953 until 1959 and as a U.S. Senator from 1959 to 2010...
(D-WV), who personally filibustered for 14 hours straight.
Major features of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
(The full text of the Act is available
online.)
Title I
Barred unequal application of voter registration requirements.
- "It shall be the duty of the judge designated pursuant to this section to assign the case for hearing at the earliest practicable date and to cause the case to be in every way expedited."'
Title I did not eliminate literacy tests, which were one of the main methods used to exclude Black voters, other racial minorities, and poor Whites in the South, nor did it address economic retaliation, police repression, or physical violence against nonwhite voters. While the Act did require that voting rules and procedures be applied equally to all races, it did not abolish the concept of voter "qualification", that is to say, it accepted the idea that citizens do not have an automatic right to vote but rather might have to meet some standard beyond citizenship.
Title II
Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private."
Title III
Prohibited state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, color, religion or national origin.
Title IV
Encouraged the desegregation of public schools and authorized the U.S. Attorney General to file suits to enforce said act.
Title V
Expanded the
Civil Rights CommissionThe U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is historically a bipartisan, independent commission of the U.S. federal government charged with the responsibility for investigating, reporting on, and making recommendations concerning civil rights issues that face the nation.-Commissioners:The Commission is...
established by the earlier
Civil Rights Act of 1957The Civil Rights Act of 1957, , primarily a voting rights bill, was the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress in the United States since Reconstruction following the American Civil War.Following the historic US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v...
with additional powers, rules and procedures.
Title VI
Prevents discrimination by government agencies that receive federal funds. If an agency is found in violation of Title VI, that agency may lose its federal funding.
General
This title declares it to be the policy of the United States that discrimination on the ground of race, color, or national origin shall not occur in connection with programs and activities receiving Federal financial assistance and authorizes and directs the appropriate Federal departments and agencies to take action to carry out this policy. This title is not intended to apply to foreign assistance programs.
Section 601 This section states the general principle that no person in the United States shall be excluded from participation in or otherwise discriminated against on the ground of race, color, or national origin under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.
Section 602 directs each Federal agency administering a program of Federal financial assistance by way of grant, contract, or loan to take action pursuant to rule, regulation, or order of general applicability to effectuate the principle of section 601 in a manner consistent with the achievement of the objectives of the statute authorizing the assistance. In seeking the effect compliance with its requirements imposed under this section, an agency is authorized to terminate or to refuse to grant or to continue assistance under a program to any recipient as to whom there has been an express finding pursuant to a hearing of a failure to comply with the requirements under that program, and it may also employ any other means authorized by law. However, each agency is directed first to seek compliance with its requirements by voluntary means.
Section 603 provides that any agency action taken pursuant to section 602 shall be subject to such judicial review as would be available for similar actions by that agency on other grounds. Where the agency action consists of terminating or refusing to grant or to continue financial assistance because of a finding of a failure of the recipient to comply with the agency's requirements imposed under section 602, and the agency action would not otherwise be subject to judicial review under existing law, judicial review shall nevertheless be available to any person aggrieved as provided in section 10 of the Administrative Procedure Act . The section also states explicitly that in the latter situation such agency action shall not be deemed committed to unreviewable agency discretion within the meaning of section 10. The purpose of this provision is to obviate the possible argument that although section 603 provides for review in accordance with section 10, section 10 itself has an exception for action "committed to agency discretion," which might otherwise be carried over into section 603. It is not the purpose of this provision of section 603, however, otherwise to alter the scope of judicial review as presently provided in section 10(e) of the Administrative Procedure Act.
Title VII
Title VII of the Act, codified as Subchapter VI of Chapter 21 of title 42 of the United States Code, [2] et seq., prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin (see ). Title VII also prohibits discrimination against an individual because of his or her association with another individual of a particular race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. An employer cannot discriminate against a person because of his interracial association with another, such as by an interracial marriage.
In very narrow defined situations an employer is permitted to discriminate on the basis of a protected trait where the trait is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise. To prove the
bona fide occupational qualificationsIn employment law, a bona fide occupational qualification or bona fide occupational requirement is a quality or an attribute that employers are allowed to consider when making decisions on the hiring and retention of employees—qualities that when considered in other contexts would constitute...
defense, an employer must prove three elements: a direct relationship between sex and the ability to perform the duties of the job, the BFOQ relates to the "essence" or "central mission of the employer's business," and there is no less-restrictive or reasonable alternative (
United Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 111 S.Ct. 1196). The Bona Fide Occupational Qualification exception is an extremely narrow exception to the general prohibition of discrimination based on sex (
Dothard v. RawlinsonDothard v. Rawlinson was the first United States Supreme Court case which the Bona fide occupational qualifications defense was used. In the 1970s there were height and weight restrictions to be considered as an applicant for an Alabama prison guard...
, 97 S.Ct. 2720). An employer or customer's preference for an individual of a particular religion is not sufficient to establish a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Kamehameha School — Bishop Estate, 990 F.2d 458 (9th Cir. 1993)).
Title VII allows for any employer, labor organization, joint labor-management committee, or employment agency to bypass the "unlawful employment practice" for any person involved with the Communist Party of the United States or of any other organization required to register as a Communist-action or Communist-front organization by final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board pursuant to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950.
There are partial and whole exceptions to Title VII for four types of employers:
- Federal government; (Comment: The proscriptions against employment discrimination under Title VII are now applicable to the federal government under 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e-16)
- Federally recognized Native American tribes
- Religious groups performing work connected to the group's activities, including associated education institutions;
- Bona fide nonprofit private membership organizations.
The
Equal Employment Opportunity CommissionThe U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an independent federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,...
(EEOC) as well as certain state fair employment practices agencies (FEPAs) enforce Title VII (see ). The EEOC and state FEPAs investigate, mediate, and may file lawsuits on behalf of employees. Every state, except Arkansas and Mississippi, maintains a state FEPA (see EEOC and state FEPA
directory ). Title VII also provides that an individual can bring a private lawsuit. An individual must file a complaint of discrimination with the EEOC within 180 days of learning of the discrimination or the individual may lose the right to file a lawsuit. Title VII only applies to employers who employ 15 or more employees for 20 or more weeks in the current or preceding calendar year .
In the late 1970s courts began holding that
sexual harassmentSexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
is also prohibited under the Act.
Chrapliwy v. UniroyalChrapliwy v. Uniroyal, Inc., 670 F.2d 760 , was a decision of the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals concerning the award of attorney's fees in a discrimination lawsuit. The facts of the case involved allegedly discriminatory practices in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
is a notable Title VII case relating to sexual harassment that was decided in favor of the plaintiffs. In 1986 the
Supreme CourtThe Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
held in
Meritor Savings Bank v. VinsonMeritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, 477 U.S. 57 , marked the United States Supreme Court's recognition of certain forms of sexual harassment as a violation of Civil Rights Act of 1964 Title VII, and established the standards for analyzing whether conduct was unlawful and when an employer would be...
, , that sexual harassment is sex discrimination and is prohibited by Title VII. Same-sex
sexual harassmentSexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
has also been held in a unanimous decision written by Justice Scalia to be prohibited by Title VII (
Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., , 118 S.Ct. 998). Title VII has been supplemented with legislation prohibiting pregnancy, age, and disability discrimination (
See Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978,
Age Discrimination in Employment ActThe Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, Pub. L. No. 90-202Code, through , forbids employment discrimination against anyone at least 40 years of age in the United States .-Scope of Protection:...
,
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a law that was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1990. It was signed into law on July 26, 1990, by President George H. W. Bush, and later amended with changes effective January 1, 2009....
).
Title VIII
Required compilation of voter-registration and voting data in geographic areas specified by the Commission on Civil Rights.
Title IX
Title IX made it easier to move civil rights cases from state courts with segregationist judges and all-white juries to federal court. This was of crucial importance to civil rights activists who could not get a fair trial in state courts.
Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 should not be confused with
Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is a United States law, enacted on June 23, 1972, that amended Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2002 it was renamed the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act, in honor of its principal author Congresswoman Mink, but is most...
, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally-funded education programs and activities.
Title X
Established the Community Relations Service, tasked with assisting in community disputes involving claims of discrimination.
Title XI
Title XI gives the Jury rights to put any proceeding for criminal contempt arising under title II, III, IV, V, VI, or VII of the Civil Rights Act, on trial, and if convicted, can be fined no more than $1,000 or imprisoned for more than six months.
Subsequent history
The Constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was, at the time, in some dispute as it applied to the private sector. In the landmark
Civil Rights CasesThe Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 , were a group of five similar cases consolidated into one issue for the United States Supreme Court to review...
the United States Supreme Court had ruled that Congress did not have the power to prohibit discrimination in the private sector, thus stripping the Civil Rights Act of 1875 of much of its ability to protect civil rights
http://chnm.gmu.edu/courses/122/recon/civilrightsact.html.
Even today, the Supreme Court has struck down parts of civil rights laws on the grounds that the Fourteenth Amendment does not give Congress the power to prohibit private sector discrimination.
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the legal justification for voiding the Civil Rights Act of 1875, was part of a larger trend by members of the United States Supreme Court to invalidate most government regulations of the private sector, except when dealing with laws designed to protect traditional public morality.
In the 1930s, during the New Deal, the majority of the Supreme Court justices gradually shifted their legal theory to allow for greater government regulation of the private sector under the commerce clause, thus paving the way for the Federal government to enact civil rights laws prohibiting both public and private sector discrimination on the basis of the commerce clause.
After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, the Supreme Court upheld the law's application to the private sector, on the grounds that Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the States. The landmark case,
Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. U.S., established the Constitutionality of the law, but it did not settle all of the legal questions surrounding the law.
In a 1971 Supreme Court case regarding the gender provisions of the Act, the Court ruled that a company could not discriminate against a potential female employee because she had a preschool-age child unless they did the same with potential male employees. A federal court overruled an
OhioOhio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
state law that barred women from obtaining jobs which required the ability to lift 25 pounds and required women to take lunch breaks when men were not required to. In
Pittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human RelationsPittsburgh Press Co. v. Pittsburgh Commission on Human Relations, , is a 1973 decision of the United States Supreme Court which upheld an ordinance enacted in Pittsburgh that forbids sex-designated classified advertising for job opportunities, against a claim by the parent company of the Pittsburgh...
, the United States Supreme Court decided that printing separate job listings for men and women was illegal, which ended that practice among the country's newspapers. The
United States Civil Service CommissionThe United States Civil Service Commission a three man commission was created by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, which was passed into law on January 16, 1883...
ended the practice among federal jobs which designated them "women only" or "men only."
In 1974, the Supreme Court also ruled that the San Francisco school district was violating non-English speaking students' rights under the 1964 act by placing them in regular classes rather than providing some sort of accommodation for them.
In 1975, a federal civil rights agency warned a
Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
school that its end-of-year father-son and mother-daughter baseball games were illegal according to the 1964 Civil Rights Act. President
Gerald FordGerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
intervened, and the games were allowed to continue.
In 1977, the Supreme Court struck down state minimum height requirements for police officers as violating the Act; women usually could not meet these requirements.
See also
- Bennett Amendment
The Bennett Amendment is a provision in §703 of Title VII of the United States Civil Rights Act of 1964 incorporating specific terms of the Equal Pay Act of 1963 to more clearly define under what circumstances an employer may provide different compensation to employees of different sex...
- African-American Civil Rights Movement
- Civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
- Civil Rights Act of 1866
The Civil Rights Act of 1866, , enacted April 9, 1866, is a federal law in the United States that was mainly intended to protect the civil rights of African-Americans, in the wake of the American Civil War...
- Civil Rights Act of 1871
The Civil Rights Act of 1871, , enacted April 20, 1871, is a federal law in force in the United States. The Act was originally enacted a few years after the American Civil War, along with the 1870 Force Act. One of the chief reasons for its passage was to protect southern blacks from the Ku Klux...
- Civil Rights Act of 1875
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a United States federal law proposed by Senator Charles Sumner and Representative Benjamin F. Butler in 1870...
- Civil Rights Act of 1957
The Civil Rights Act of 1957, , primarily a voting rights bill, was the first civil rights legislation enacted by Congress in the United States since Reconstruction following the American Civil War.Following the historic US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v...
- Civil Rights Act of 1960
The Civil Rights Act of 1960 was a United States federal law that established federal inspection of local voter registration rolls and introduced penalties for anyone who obstructed someone's attempt to register to vote or to vote...
- Civil Rights Act of 1968
On April 11, 1968 U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 is commonly known as the Fair Housing Act, or as CRA '68, and was meant as a follow-up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964...
- Equal Pay Act of 1963
The Equal Pay Act of 1963 is a United States federal law amending the Fair Labor Standards Act, aimed at abolishing wage disparity based on sex . It was signed into law on June 10, 1963 by John F. Kennedy as part of his New Frontier Program...
- Everett McKinley Dirksen
- Force Act of 1870
- Force Act of 1871
- Bourke B. Hickenlooper
Bourke Blakemore Hickenlooper , was a Republican politician from the US state of Iowa. He was lieutenant governor from 1939 to 1943 and then the 29th Governor of Iowa from 1943 to 1945...
- Lodge Bill
The Lodge Bill or Federal Elections Bill of 1890 was a bill drafted by Representative Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, and sponsored in the Senate by George Frisbie Hoar; it was endorsed by President Benjamin Harrison. The bill would have allowed the federal government to ensure that elections...
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
- Reconstruction Acts
- Women's Rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
- Employment Non-Discrimination Act
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is a proposed bill in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by civilian, nonreligious employers with at least 15 employees.ENDA has been introduced in every...
- Affirmative action in the United States
In the United States, affirmative action refers to equal opportunity employment measures that Federal contractors and subcontractors are legally required to adopt. These measures are intended to prevent discrimination against employees or applicants for employment, on the basis of "color,...
Cases
- Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States
Heart of Atlanta Motel Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241 , was a landmark United States Supreme Court case holding that the U.S. Congress could use the Constitution's Commerce Clause power to force private businesses to abide by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.- Background :This important case...
(1964)
- Katzenbach v. McClung
Katzenbach v. McClung, 379 U.S. 294 , was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that Congress acted within its power under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution in forbidding racial discrimination in restaurants as this was a burden to interstate commerce...
(1964)
- Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co., , was a court case argued before the United States Supreme Court on December 14, 1970. It concerned employment discrimination and the disparate impact theory and was decided on March 8, 1971...
(1971)
- Washington v. Davis
Washington v. Davis, , was a United States Supreme Court case regarding the application of the Due Process Clause. Two African Americans had applied for positions in the Washington, DC police department, and sued after being turned down...
(1976)
- Brown v. Trustees of Boston University (1989)
- Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio
Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642 , was a court case argued before the United States Supreme Court on January 18, 1989. It concerned employment discrimination and was decided on June 5, 1989.-Facts:...
(1989)
- Ricci v. DeStefano
Ricci v. DeStefano, 129 S. Ct. 2658, 2671, 174 L. Ed. 2d 490 is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States arising from a lawsuit brought against the city of New Haven, Connecticut by twenty city firefighters alleging that the city discriminated against them with regard to promotions...
(2009)
Further reading
- Branch, Taylor (1998), Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963–65, New York: Simon & Schuster.
- Brauer, Carl M., "Women Activists, Southern Conservatives, and the Prohibition of Sexual Discrimination in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act", 49 Journal of Southern History, February 1983.
- Burstein, Paul (1985), Discrimination, Jobs and Politics: The Struggle for Equal Employment Opportunity in the United States since the New Deal, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Finley, Keith M. (2008), Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight Against Civil Rights, 1938–1965, Baton Rouge: LSU Press.
- Freeman, Jo. "How 'Sex' Got Into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy" Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice, Vol. 9, No. 2, March 1991, pp. 163–184. online version
- Graham, Hugh (1990), The Civil Rights Era: Origins and Development of National Policy, 1960–1972, New York: Oxford U P.
- Harrison, Cynthia (1988), On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues 1945–1968, Berkeley, CA: U. California Press.
- Jeong, Gyung-Ho, Gary J. Miller, and Itai Sened, “Closing the Deal: Negotiating Civil Rights Legislation,” American Political Science Review, 103 (Nov. 2009)
- Loevy, Robert D. (1990), To End All Segregation: The Politics of the Passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
- Loevy, Robert D. ed. (1997), The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law That Ended Racial Segregation, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
- Loevy, Robert D. "A Brief History of the Civil Rights Act OF 1964," in David C. Kozak and Kenneth N. Ciboski, ed., The American Presidency (Chicago: Nelson Hall, 1985), pp. 411–419. online version
- Pedriana, Nicholas, and Stryker, Robin. "The Strength of a Weak Agency: Enforcement of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Expansion of State Capacity, 1965-1971," American Journal of Sociology, Nov 2004, Vol. 110 Issue 3, pp 709–760
- Rodriguez, Daniel B. and Weingast, Barry R. "The Positive Political Theory of Legislative History: New Perspectives on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and Its Interpretation", University of Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 151. (2003)
- Warren, Dan R. (2008), If It Takes All Summer: Martin Luther King, the KKK, and States' Rights in St. Augustine, 1964, Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press.
- Whalen, Charles and Whalen, Barbara (1985), The Longest Debate: A Legislative History of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Cabin John, MD: Seven Locks Press.
- Woods, Randall B. (2006), LBJ: Architect of American Ambition, New York: Free Press, ch 22.
External links