Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: Key Protections

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a federal law that prohibits job discrimination against employees, applicants, and union members on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, and gender at any stage of employment (Cross and LeRoy Miller 493). In addition, Title VII's protections have been extended to include barring most workplace harassment and discrimination, covering all private employers, state and local governments, and educational institutions with 15 or more employees; labor unions with 15 or more members; labor unions that operate hiring halls (to which members go regularly to be assigned jobs as they become available); employment agencies; and state or local governing units or agencies (Cross and LeRoy Miller 493).

However, the United States Supreme Court has also ruled that an employer with fewer than 15 employees is not automatically shielded from a lawsuit under Title VII (Cross and LeRoy Miller 493). A special section of the Act prohibits discrimination in most federal and state employment. When Title VII applies to the employer, any employee — including an undocumented worker — can bring an action for employment discrimination (Cross and LeRoy Miller 493).

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) monitors compliance with Title VII (Cross and LeRoy Miller 493). Most employers with at least 15 employees are covered by EEOC laws, though at least 20 employees are required in age discrimination cases. Most labor unions and employment agencies are also covered. The laws apply to all types of work situations, including hiring, firing, promotions, harassment, training, wages, and benefits (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 1).

Before an employee can file a complaint against an employer under Title VII, he or she must first file a charge with the EEOC (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 1). The EEOC may investigate the dispute and attempt to obtain the parties' voluntary consent to an out-of-court settlement (Cross and LeRoy Miller 493–494). If the EEOC is not successful in reaching such a voluntary settlement, the agency has the authority to file a lawsuit on the employee's behalf to protect his or her rights and the interests of the public. However, it does not file lawsuits in all cases where it finds discrimination (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission 1).

The EEOC does not investigate every claim of employment discrimination. Generally, it takes only "priority cases," such as cases that affect many workers and cases involving retaliatory discharge — that is, firing an employee in retaliation for submitting a claim with the EEOC (Cross and LeRoy Miller 494). If the EEOC decides not to investigate a claim, the victim may bring his or her own claim against the employer. In that case, the EEOC will issue the employee a "right to sue" letter, and the employee may then file a complaint and begin the litigation process (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 1).

If an employer's standards and policies for selecting or promoting employees have a discriminatory effect on employees or job applicants in these protected classes, a presumption of illegal discrimination arises (Cross and LeRoy Miller 494–495). The employer must then show that its standards or policies have a substantial, demonstrable relationship to realistic qualifications for the job in question (Cross and LeRoy Miller 495).

Title VII also protects against reverse discrimination — that is, discrimination against majority group individuals, such as white males (Cross and LeRoy Miller 495). For example, if an African American woman fired several white men from their management positions at a school district, the school district could be held liable for reverse discrimination unless it had articulated a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for its actions (Cross and LeRoy Miller 495).

Title VII prohibits government employers, private employers, and unions from discriminating against persons because of their religion. Employers cannot treat their employees more or less favorably based on their religious beliefs or practices, and cannot require employees to participate in any religious activity — or forbid them from participating in one (Cross and LeRoy Miller 495). If an employee's religion prohibits him or her from working on a certain day of the week or at a certain type of job, the employer must make a reasonable attempt to accommodate these religious requirements. Employers must reasonably accommodate an employee's sincerely held religious belief even if that belief is not based on the doctrines of a traditionally recognized religion, such as Christianity or Judaism, or a specific denomination, such as Baptist (Cross and LeRoy Miller 495).

Under Title VII, as well as under other federal acts including the Equal Pay Act of 1963, employers are forbidden from discriminating against employees on the basis of gender. Employers are prohibited from classifying jobs as male or female, or from advertising in help-wanted columns designated as male or female, unless the employer can prove that the gender of the applicant is essential to the job. Employers also cannot maintain separate male or female seniority lists or refuse to promote employees based on their gender (Cross and LeRoy Miller 495–496).

The Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, which amended Title VII, expanded the definition of gender discrimination to include discrimination based on pregnancy (Cross and LeRoy Miller 496). The Equal Pay Act of 1963 prohibits employers from engaging in gender-based wage discrimination (Cross and LeRoy Miller 496). More than four decades after the Equal Pay Act was enacted, a significant gap between the wages earned by male and female employees in the United States persists. Women typically earn about three-quarters of what men earn (Cross and LeRoy Miller 496).

The majority of Title VII complaints involve unlawful discrimination in decisions to hire or fire employees. In some situations, however, employees who leave their jobs voluntarily can claim that they were "constructively discharged." Constructive discharge occurs when the employer causes the employee's working conditions to be so intolerable that a reasonable person in the employee's position would feel compelled to quit (Cross and LeRoy Miller 496). Constructive discharge applies to all Title VII discrimination, and an employee's constructive discharge resulting from a supervisor's sexual harassment can constitute a tangible employment action under Title VII (Cross and LeRoy Miller 497).

Sexual harassment is unwelcome behavior directed at a person because of their sex that is deliberate or repeated, not solicited or reciprocated, and that affects the terms and conditions of employment (Sexual Harassment and Complaint Policy 2). Courts and employers generally use the definition of sexual harassment contained in the EEOC's guidelines. Under the EEOC Policy Guidance on Current Issues of Sexual Harassment, it is unlawful to harass a person — whether an applicant or an employee — because of that person's sex. Harassment can include unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person's sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.

Both the victim and the harasser can be either a woman or a man, and the victim and harasser can be the same sex. Although the law does not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment, or when it results in an adverse employment decision such as the victim being fired or demoted. The harasser can be the victim's supervisor, a supervisor in another area, a co-worker, or someone who is not an employee of the employer, such as a client or customer (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, "Sexual Harassment").

Sexual harassment can take any of the following three forms (Sexual Harassment and Complaint Policy 2–4):

Verbal Harassment: Epithets, derogatory jokes or comments, slurs, or unwanted sexual talk. This also includes verbal abuse of a sexual nature, such as graphic verbal commentary about a person's body, sexually degrading words used to describe an individual, propositioning, and suggestive or sexually explicit letters, notes, or invitations.