EQUAL OPPORTUNITIES POLICIES AND PRACTICE

Equal Opportunities Policies and Practice

Equal Opportunities Policies and Practice

Equal Employement Opportunity Defined

Equal Employement Opportunity (EEO) is employment practice that doesn't discriminate against applicants because of race, age, color, religion, sex, or national origin. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 proposed by John F. Kennedy (who was assassinated before he could see it passed) helped establish EEO. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 made racial discrimination in public places illegal, and it established the infrastructure and platform for EEO. Executive Order 11246, signed by Lyndon B. Johnson on September 24, 1965, required EEO. The order was a follow-up to Executive Order 10479, signed by President Dwight Eisenhower on August 13, 1953, establishing the antidiscrimination Committee on Government Contracts (Ohlott, 2004).

U.S. civilian employees, applicants, or former employees may file a complaint if they believe that they have been discriminated against in an employment matter on one or more bases of race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including sexual harassment), age (over 40), and disability (mental or physical). The workplace is supposed to be free of discrimination and offer equal opportunity for all (Kossek, 2003).

The Rationale and History Behind EEO

There were many events that led to the establishment of EEO. The first presidential action ever taken against employment discrimination by private employers holding government contracts was Executive Order 8802, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). It prohibited government contractors from engaging in employment discrimination based on race, color, or national origin. FDR signed this order in June 1941, on the eve of World War II, primarily to ensure that there would be no strikes or demonstrations disrupting the manufacture of military weapons as the country prepared for war (Kanter, 2007).

In July 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed Executive Order 9981. The order required “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the armed services without regard to race, color, religion or national origin.” In December 1955, Rosa Parks, an African American woman, refused to give up her seat to a white man on the municipal bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She was arrested and charged with disturbing the peace. The arrest prompted a group of black citizens led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to boycott the public bus system for 1 day, which resulted in a yearlong strike against the Montgomery public bus system (Greenhaus, 2005). The boycott was successful and caused the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system.

School desegregation was a substantial challenge. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower had to send federal troops to Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Nine black students had been threatened by an angry white mob that opposed desegregation of public schools.

In March 1961, President Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, prohibiting federal government contractors from discriminating on account of race and establishing the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. President Kennedy stated that this would help end job discrimination once and for all. In 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act of ...