Equal Employment Opportunity The modern history of employment equity begins with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which extended employment equity rights to Americans regardless of gender, religion, national origin, race or color (National Archives, 2014). The CRA was, in essence, fulfilling the promise of the 14th Amendment, which introduced the idea of equal protection under the law. Employment in the United States is typically governed under the doctrine of employment at will, which grants employers considerable leeway in firing people, but the CRA established that people needed equal opportunity and protection regardless of the state outward characteristics. This paper will examine the history of equal employment opportunity and the moral and ethical dimensions of this concept.

History

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not invent the concept of employment equity, but it has proven to be the foundation of modern equal employment opportunity. The text of that law, and the protections that is extended to Americans, has remained in place since that time, surviving various court challenges. The Civil Rights Act has been used as the basis of similarly-structured laws that have basically expanded worker protections. Such acts include protections of disabled workers and older workers from discrimination in the workplace. A recent extension curtailed the ability of companies to discriminate on the basis of genetic information, under Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (EEOC, 2009). The recent coming out of Apple CEO Tim Cook highlights the reality that sexual orientation is not a protected class, despite ample evidence that LGBT individuals suffer discrimination in the workplace (Zillman, 2014).

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created as a regulatory body that would provide oversight and guidance to business with respect to the enforcement of equal employment opportunity provisions. The EEOC notes that the laws regarding equal employment opportunity apply to almost all employers, and that there are protections not just for workers, but for whistleblowers as well (EEOC, 2009).

Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, however, the concept of equal employment opportunity has come under several challenges in the court system. Initially, the court system expanded the scope of the CRA, for example in Griggs v. Duke Power, where the concept of "disparate impact" was invoked to find that the company has systematically discriminated against black workers by only hiring them for menial jobs, while hiring white workers exclusively for the better-paying jobs (Blake, 2014). But more recently, the CRA has seen its architecture eroded by an activist conservative court, moves some argue are weakening the law while leaves its facade, but making it much more difficult to file suit under Title VII's provisions (Blake, 2014). The Obama administration was forced to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into law as a response to a ruling from the five conservative Supreme Court judges that limited the ability of women to seek redress under the CRA, highlighted that there is an ongoing attempt to undermine the civil rights act, and that government must continue to reinforce its provisions even fifty years after it was passed (Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., 2007).

In addition to the federal anti-discrimination framework, there are a number of state-level provisions that have been enacted. States that use evidence and critical thinking in setting policy will typically take the lead in adopting more progressive legislation where employment equity is concerned. The ACLU website (2014) provides information on the state-level differences in worker protections that have been implemented to augment the Civil Rights Act.

There are two key takeaways from the legislative history of employment equity. The first is that, even fifty years after the Civil Rights Act was passed, there remains considerable opposition to the idea of treating all human beings as equals. This opposition to human rights will be discussed later in more detail, but the evidence from judicial cases has shown that even Supreme Court justices are keen to launch assaults on equality, legislating from the bench in direct contrast to the will of Congress in enacting the Civil Rights Act and its extensions.

The second takeaway that emerges is that equal employment opportunity continues to be a work in progress. This is not just the defense of the gains that have already been made, but the extension of those gains to eliminate workplace discrimination. The recent passage of laws preventing discrimination on the basis of genetic information represents an adaptation of civil rights to modern technology, and the issue of LGBT rights is still on the table at the federal level, and in many states as well. So there remains areas where progress is necessary....

It can seem frustrating at times to reflect that not only are there impediments to such progress but that there are people who are actively trying to undo progress that was made fifty years ago.
The Moral and Ethical Considerations

Equal Employment Opportunity is a concept rooted in the 14th Amendment, and brought to law with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The civil rights movement in the 1960s was a reflection of the values of society, which were becoming more oriented towards human rights, and genuinely providing equality of opportunity. It is generally accepted that within any society there will some form of socioeconomic hierarchy, whether formal or informal. In some respects, people accept that hierarchy provides order to society, or is natural (Arneson, 2002). There are few if any societies that do not contain hierarchy, because power or control of resources is almost impossible to disperse evenly.

The concept of equal employment opportunity is not rooted, therefore, in a consequentialist ethic that all people specifically have equal outcomes. There are many input factors that determine outcome, including intelligent, ability and other skill-based factors. While this does not prevent many groups from pointing to outcome inequality as a persistent problem, outcome inequality itself is natural. Outcome inequality is, however, a symptom that there is likely some form of input inequality, or structural inequality. The development of equal employment opportunity as a concept actually only addresses part of the structure of economic opportunity in our society, and therefore cannot possibly deliver outcome equality. In addition to personal factors, concepts like education equality and the way that society apportions roles for people of different groups are other factors. Some CRA provisions, it is worth noting, to address the concept of economic opportunity, for example, in university admissions, but this is not specifically an employment equity issue.

Employment equity works on principles of individual liberty, wherein each person should have equal opportunity to pursue wealth and resources. The concept at large covers all manner of barriers to social equity, where employment equity is just one element. Thus, the CRA was designed largely to prevent the sort of institutionalized, structural barriers that had to that point prevented equal opportunity for many groups. By forbidding discrimination in hiring and promotion in particular, each individual will have the opportunity to succeed on his or her own merits.

The core idea usually does not come under fire, except from outright bigots and religious zealots, neither group being all that prone to accepting rational philosophical thought. Where reasonable arguments against employment equity are offered is often vs. specific implementation issues. In most cases, however, this is a question of outcome-based analysis, such as evaluating the ADA on outcomes for the disabled (Acemoglu & Angrist, 2001).

While outcome-based evaluations clearly struggle with understanding the limitations of equal employment opportunity legislation to address the sum total of factors affecting socioeconomic equality, there is a point where they are relevant, in that society must evaluate laws based on their intent. If the laws only intend to create equal opportunity, so be it, but in many cases the laws do intend to deliver improvements in outcomes -- if nothing changes, why pass the law and create enforcement infrastructure? The body of research is mixed with respect to the actual outcomes created by equal employment opportunity, and there is no shortage of anecdotes from those who perceive to be aggrieved.

Human Resources

In business, equal employment opportunity has been operationalized by the human resources departments. In the past fifty years, the field of human resources has become increasingly sophisticated, and civil rights has been a part of that. Companies have restructured the way that they hire and promote people. There is far greater emphasis, for example, on using quantitative analysis to perform these tasks, because it allows the company to basically evaluate a candidate without knowing his or her name, or other demographic details. Job descriptions are written, performance metrics developed, and people are evaluated on the basis of those metrics.

This actually serves organizations well, in that it increases the efficiency of their workforce and instills something much closer to meritocracy. Over time, such policies create greater employment opportunities, as more diversity in candidates move up the corporate ladder, such that today there are more high quality candidates for C-suite posts from protected groups, having had the opportunity to build their careers in an era of greater equality.

Barriers

There remain many barriers to equal employment…