Chapter 17

Civil Rights at Work

This chapter:

Discusses employment discrimination. Explains the evolution of laws and methods

used to fight it over the years.

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Civil Rights in the WorkplaceOpening Case

Brooke Waits worked hard and her job was part of her. Away from work, Waits was open about being a lesbian, but

at work she sensed that revealing herself would estrange her from the others.

After being fired, Waits testified before Congress. Since the 1970s, supporters in Congress have tried to pass a

law extending workplace protections to victims of bias such as Waits.

The Employment Non-discrimination Act of 2007 seeks to make it illegal to take any adverse job action based on sexual orientation.

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This story is part of the long history of struggle for civil rights protections in the workplace.

A Short History of Workplace Civil Rights The Colonial Era

Employment discrimination in America can be dated from 1619.

In the Declaration of Independence, “unalienable” rights are natural rights. Natural rights exist on a higher plane than civil

rights, which are rights bestowed by governments on their citizens.

The unalienable rights statement in the Declaration distills a body of doctrine know as the American Creed.

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Civil War and Reconstruction

In the United States, the issue of slavery rose to a crisis in the Civil War. In 1863, President Lincoln issued the

Emancipation Proclamation. Following the war, Congress passed three

constitutional amendments designed to protect the rights of former slaves. These amendments were supplemented by a

series of civil rights acts passed by Congress. With little enforcement of these laws, southern

states adopted segregationist statutes called Jim Crow laws.

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Other Groups Face Employment Discrimination

Native Americans were widely treated as inferior.

When Mexico ceded Texas, 90,000 Hispanics became U.S. residents, but were victims of a range of discriminatory actions.

In 1851, Chinese laborers began to enter the country to be met by economic and racial discrimination.

The earliest Japanese immigrants found similar inhospitality.

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The Civil Rights Cases

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was passed to prevent racial discrimination. There was still widespread discrimination

against freed slaves by business and soon a series of cases reached the Supreme Court.

These cases were consolidated into one opinion by the Court in 1883 and called the Civil Rights Cases.

The Civil Rights Cases so narrowed the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment that it became irrelevant to a broad range of economic and social bias.

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Plessy v. Ferguson

The Separate Car Act was passed by Louisiana in 1890. On June 7, 1892, Homer Plessy, who was 7/8 Caucasian and

1/8 African, was asked to move to the “nonwhite” coach. Plessy refused and was taken to a New Orleans jail.

Plessy brought suit, claiming he was entitled to “equal protection of the laws” as stated in the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court disagreed.

The ruling completed the destruction of the Fourteenth Amendment as a mechanism to guarantee civil rights.

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Long Years of Discrimination

Southern legislators were emboldened

by Plessy. Jim Crow laws spread. Black workers faced blatant

discrimination. These customs spread to the north.

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The Civil Rights Act of 1964

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, a new civil rights movement arose.

The pressures of this movement led to many social reforms, among them passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Its Title VII prohibits discrimination in any

aspect of employment. Title VII also created the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission.

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Disparate Treatment and Disparate Impact

Title VII enforced a legal theory of disparate treatment.

When Title VII went into effect, employees could no longer engage in outwardly visible displays of discrimination.

The flaw in Title VII was that it contained no weapon to fight disparate impact.

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The Griggs Case

In Griggs v. Duke Power, the Supreme Court held that diploma requirements and tests that screened out blacks or other protected classes were illegal unless employers could show that they were related to job performance or justified by business necessity.

The Griggs decision, and the legal theory of disparate impact it created, was necessary for Title VII to work.

In 1978 the EEOC defined illegal disparate impact for employers with a guideline know as the 80 percent rule.

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Affirmative Action

The origin of most affirmative action in corporations is Executive Order 11246.

The Labor Department issued Order No. 4, which requires federal contractors to analyze major job categories to find out if they are using women and minorities in the same proportion as they are present in the area labor force. If protected groups are

underrepresented, companies must set up goals and timetables for hiring, retention, and promotion.

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Affirmative ActionPolicies that seek out, encourage, and sometimes give preferential treatment to employees in groups protected by Title VIII

The Supreme Court Changes Title VII

The first high-profile challenge came from Allan Bakke, a white male denied admission to medical school, claiming reverse discrimination. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor.

A white laboratory analyst, Brian Weber, brought suit against Kaiser Aluminum claiming a promotion selection procedure violated Title VII. The Court ruled against him saying Kaiser’s

affirmative action plan embodied “the spirit of the law.”

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The Supreme Court Changes Title VII (continued)

These rulings established important criteria for judging the legality of subsequent affirmative action programs: A plan must be designed to break down historic

patterns of race or sex discrimination. The plan must not create an absolute bar to the

advance of white employees. The plan must not require the discharge of white

workers. The plan should be flexible and temporary.

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The Affirmative Action Debate

Utilitarian considerations. Ethical theories of justice raise

questions about the ultimate fairness of affirmative action.

Affirmative action may be debated in light of ethical theories on rights.

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Women in the Workplace

Around the world more women work than ever before. In 2006 there were 1.2 billion women in the global labor

force, making up 40 percent of the total. The number of women at work varies around the globe with

economic development and cultural tradition. Participation rates are high in the least-developed countries,

where poverty pushes women into paid labor At 70 percent, the United States has the second-highest

female labor force participation among high-income nations. Lowest participation is found in Arab nations.

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Gender Attitudes at Work

The new feminist perspective asserted that working women were entitled to the same jobs, rights, and ambitions as men.

Men who believed in traditional sex-role stereotypes thought that women were too emotional to manage well; lacked ambition, logic, and toughness; and could not sustain career drive because of family obligations.

In the U.S. belief in the traditional stereotype has eroded but proves durable.

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Subtle Discrimination

Many workplace cultures are based on masculine values.

In blue-collar settings, sexism may be blatant; some men will openly express biases.

In managerial settings, sex discrimination is usually subtle, even unintentional.

Masculine cultures underlie many kinds of differential treatment.

Men and women learn different ways of speaking in childhood. Later in life these conversation styles carry over into the workplace, where they can place women at a disadvantage.

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Harassment

Many women experience sexual harassment at some time in their careers.

Men use sex-based harassment to define and enforce gender distinctions

The EEOC guidelines define two situations whre harassment is illegal: Quid pro quo Hostile environment

The range of conduct that can create a hostile environment has expanded to become very broad, but is not subject to precise definition

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Occupational Segregation

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Update with Figure 17.1

Compensation

Although the gender wage gap is closing, it is persistent for three reasons: Occupational segregation places women in

female-dominated occupations that tend to be lower paying than male-dominated ones.

Women pay a heavy earnings penalty for child bearing and child rearing, activities that interrupt careers.

The gap reflects elements of sex discrimination. The pay gap between men and women is

worldwide, although in most other nations it is lower than in the United States.

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Corporate Efforts to Promote Diversity

Many large firms go beyond compliance to promote workforce diversity.

Diversity management is a broader effort than affirmative action.

Advocates promote diversity management using two arguments: It is an ethical action needing no justification

beyond its inherent goodness. It can strengthen business.

To succeed, a diversity management program must be part of the corporate management system.

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Key Components of a Diversity Management Program

Leadership Change in the organization structure Training programs Mentors Data collection Policy changes Reward systems

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Concluding Observations

The first national effort to end workplace discrimination began during the Civil War. This visionary effort was defeated by social

values contrary to the laws. In the 1960s, a second effort began with passage

of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Today the accumulated corpus of antidiscrimination

law is massive, complex, and controversial but overall, it works.

Yet, more needs to be done.

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