The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law that was proposed by President John F. Kennedy and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to outlaw the discrimination and segregation at workplace.<\/p>\n
In 1965, the law also established a government agency known as the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce the provisions under the Civil Rights Act. This agency is responsible for administering and investigating priority cases of discrimination. The agency also arranges for an out-of-court settlement as part of its mediation process. If such types of settlements are unattainable, the EEOC may file lawsuit against the employer on behalf of the employee.<\/p>\n
Title VII<\/strong><\/p>\n Title VII, which is the seventh amendment of the Civil Rights Act, prohibits employment discrimination in the form of hiring, firing, compensation, benefits, work assignments, transfer, promotions and layoffs by providing protection classes under the following categories to the employees:<\/p>\n According to Guerin & Barreiro (2019), Title VII provides coverage to the following employers:<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Private employers with 15 or more employees<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The federal government<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 State and local governments<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Private and public employment agencies<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Labor organizations, and<\/p>\n –\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Joint labor\/management committees<\/p>\n The coverage also includes multinational employers who operate in the United States or its territories as well as companies that were incorporated in the United States or controlled by a U.S company but have operations in the other countries.<\/p>\n Title VII Exceptions<\/strong><\/p>\n There are also exceptions to the Civil Rights Act to benefit the employers. The Act provides employers defense justification to discrimination on the basis of gender, religion, and national origin, excluding race or color. According to Miller (2017), employers can defend themselves against allegations of employment discrimination based on the following reasons:<\/p>\n Bona Fide Occupational Qualification<\/strong><\/p>\n A bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ) defense, in particular, \u201cis a legally sanctioned exception from the general obligation of employers to evaluate each job seeker or employee on individual qualifications\u201d (Schachter, 2013). As such, an employer\u2019s treatment of a member of the protected group is justifiable as long as the employer\u2019s actions were based on gender, national origin, and religion of the employee but not race.\u00a0<\/p>\n BFOQ Case<\/strong><\/p>\n The BFOQ defense was first used in legal proceedings of Dothard v. Rawlinson case in 1977 where the Alabama state imposed height and weight restrictions of 5feet 2 inches and 120 pounds respectively to be considered an applicant for the prison guard position.<\/p>\n Dianne Kimberly Rawlinson applied for this position with Alabama\u2019s Department of Corrections. She later filed a case action suit against the state of Alabama after her employment application for the position of prison guard was rejected based on her failure to meet the statutory minimum height and weight requirements.<\/p>\n Rawlinson\u2019s class action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 alleged that \u201cshe had been denied employment because of her sex, in violation of federal law\u201d (LexisNexis, n.d.).<\/p>\n Immediately after the suit was filed, the Alabama Board of Corrections \u201cadopted a rule banning women from working in \u201ccontact positions\u201d that require close physical proximity to inmates\u201d (Oyez, n.d.). This regulation was aimed to create male only and female only positions and was indirectly targeted to exclude women from approximately 75 percent of the jobs within the department. Following this, Rawlinson\u2019s amended her suit to challenge the new rule and claimed that the new regulation violated federal law.<\/p>\n BFOQ Case Outcome<\/strong><\/p>\n The Dothard v. Rawlinson case initially went through the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama for judgement and it was ruled in favor of Rawlinson. The lower court decided that Alabama Department of Corrections violated Title VII provisions by creating barriers to employment by imposing the height and weight restrictions on candidates.<\/p>\n The Alabama state then directly appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, claiming that height and weight restrictions, and the \u201ccontact position\u201d as a bona fide occupational qualification as strength and size was a requirement to maintain security and order over inmates in prison.<\/p>\n In passing the judgement, the court ruled 8 to 1 in favor of Rawlinson on the issue of height and weight requirements. The court cited that the Alabama Board of Corrections\u2019 height and weight requirements violated Title VII because, based on the evidence provided by Rawlinson to the court, the minimum employment requirement excluded \u201c41.13 percent of the United States female population but less than 1 percent of its male population\u201d (Quimbee, 2007). The Alabama Board of Corrections, on the other hand, was unable to prove that this requirement was work related.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the court ruled 6 to 3 in favor of the Alabama Board of Corrections on the issue of \u201ccontact positions\u201d. The court cited that Alabama\u2019s BFOQ defense was legitimate as it did not violate the provision of Title VII and having female prison guards in close proximity to male inmates would create safety and security risks. This is because female prison guards are more vulnerable to sexual attacks from male inmates compared to male prison guards.\u00a0<\/p>\n BFOQ Exception Use in Today\u2019s World<\/strong><\/p>\n The above case of Dothard v. Rawlinson and the courts\u2019 ruling was a landmark decision that opened the doors for female applicants to get hired in law enforcement jobs that was once considered a male dominated field of employment.<\/p>\n The application of Title VII requires a threshold of 15 or more employees. However in 2003, the \u201cU.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit adopted a three factor test\u201d (Outwater, 2003) in Nesbit v. Gears Unlimited, Inc. case to determine whether combining the affiliates of a company to meet the employee threshold of 15 was permissible. The three factor test considered: (i) whether the company created separate entities of less than 15 employees to evade Title VII; (ii) whether the parent company provided direction to its subsidiary to practice the discriminatory act; or (iii) whether the business activities of all the entities are linked in creating the alleged discriminatory practice.<\/p>\n Even though the courts\u2019 ruling dismissed the three factor test under Title VII in the case of Nesbit v. Gears Unlimited, Inc., it did set a clear path for employers with less than 15 employees to rightfully comply with federal anti-discrimination laws.<\/p>\n In my opinion, the BFOQ exceptions to employment discrimination should be completely abolished because it provides unwarranted protection to employers and unfair advantage to \u201clegally\u201d practice discriminatory acts at workplace. Today, there are numerous legal protections available to safeguard employee interests but more legislations may be required in future as the advancement in technology may lead to more discriminatory practices by employers to downsize the workforce.<\/p>\n References<\/strong><\/p>\n The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law that was proposed by President John F. Kennedy and signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson to outlaw the discrimination and segregation at workplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[84],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-law-essayscivil-law","tag-us-law"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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