Закон о гражданских правах 1964 года: история и значение

Landmark U. S. civil rights and labor law
the 1964 Civil Rights Act

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act "remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history". Initially, powers given to enforce the act were weak, but these were supplemented during later years. Congress asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its enumerated power to regulate interstate commerce under the Commerce Clause of Article I, Section VIII, its duty to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment. The legislation was proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June 1963, but it was opposed by filibuster in the Senate. After Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward. The United States House of Representatives passed the bill on February 10, 1964, and after a 72 day filibuster, it passed the United States Senate on June 19, 1964. The final vote was 290–130 in the House of Representatives and 73–27 in the Senate. After the House agreed to a subsequent Senate amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by President Johnson at the White House on July 2, 1964.

In the 1883 landmark Civil Rights Cases, the United States Supreme Court had ruled that Congress did not have the power to prohibit discrimination in the private sector, thus stripping the Civil Rights Act of 1875 of much of its ability to protect civil rights. In the late 19th and early 20th century, the legal justification for voiding the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was part of a larger trend by members of the United States Supreme Court to invalidate most government regulations of the private sector, except when dealing with laws designed to protect traditional public morality. In the 1930s, during the New Deal, the majority of the Supreme Court justices gradually shifted their legal theory to allow for greater government regulation of the private sector under the Commerce Clause, thus paving the way for the federal government to enact civil rights laws prohibiting both public and private sector discrimination on the basis of the commerce clause. Influenced in part by the "Black Cabinet" advisors and the March on Washington Movement, just before the U. S. entered World War II, President Franklin Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802, the first federal anti discrimination order, and established the Fair Employment Practices Committee. Roosevelt's successor, President Harry Truman, appointed the President's Committee on Civil Rights, proposed the 20th century's first comprehensive Civil Rights Act, and issued Executive Order 9980 and Executive Order 9981, providing for fair employment and desegregation throughout the federal government and the armed forces.

The Civil Rights Act of 1957, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on September 9, 1957, was the first federal civil rights legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1875 to become law. After the Supreme Court ruled school segregation unconstitutional in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education, Southern Democrats began a campaign of "massive resistance" against desegregation, and even the few moderate white leaders shifted to openly racist positions. Partly in an effort to defuse calls for more far reaching reforms, Eisenhower proposed a civil rights bill that would increase the protection of African American voting rights. Despite having a limited impact on African American voter participation, at a time when black voter registration was just 20%, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 did establish the United States Commission on Civil Rights and the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. By 1960, black voting had increased by only 3%, and Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1960, which eliminated certain loopholes left by the 1957 Act.

In winning the 1960 United States presidential election, Kennedy took 70% of the African American vote. But due to his somewhat narrow victory and Democrats' narrow majorities in Congress, he was wary to push hard for civil rights legislation for fear of losing southern support. But with elevated racial tensions and a wave of African American protests in the spring of 1963, such as the Birmingham campaign, Kennedy realized he had to act on civil rights. Kennedy first proposed the 1964 bill in his Report to the American People on Civil Rights on June 11, 1963. He sought legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments"—as well as "greater protection for the right to vote". In late July, Walter Reuther, president of the United Auto Workers, warned that if Congress failed to pass Kennedy's civil rights bill, the country would face another civil war. Emulating the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Kennedy's civil rights bill included provisions to ban discrimination in public accommodations and enable the U. S. Attorney General to join lawsuits against state governments that operated segregated school systems, among other provisions. But it did not include a number of provisions civil rights leaders deemed essential, including protection against police brutality, ending discrimination in private employment, and granting the Justice Department power to initiate desegregation or job discrimination lawsuits.

On June 11, 1963, President Kennedy met with Republican leaders to discuss the legislation before his television address to the nation that evening. Two days later, Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirksen and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield both voiced support for the president's bill, except for provisions guaranteeing equal access to places of public accommodations. This led to several Republican Representatives drafting a compromise bill to be considered. On June 19, the president sent his bill to Congress as it was originally written, saying legislative action was "imperative". The president's bill went first to the House of Representatives, where it was referred to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by New York Democrat Emanuel Celler. After a series of hearings on the bill, Celler's committee strengthened the act, adding provisions to ban racial discrimination in employment, providing greater protection to black voters, eliminating segregation in all publicly owned facilities (not just schools), and strengthening the anti segregation clauses regarding public facilities such as lunch counters. They also added authorization for the Attorney General to file lawsuits to protect individuals against the deprivation of any rights secured by the Constitution or U. S. law. In essence, this was the controversial "Title III" that had been removed from the 1957 Act and 1960 Act. Civil rights organizations pressed hard for this provision because it could be used to protect peaceful protesters and black voters from police brutality and suppression of free speech rights. After the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, on August 28, 1963, the organizers visited Kennedy to discuss the civil rights bill. Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Walter Reuther attempted to persuade him to support a provision establishing a Fair Employment Practices Commission that would ban discriminatory practices by all federal agencies, unions, and private companies. The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963 and referred to the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard W. Smith, a Democrat and staunch segregationist from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely.

On June 19, the compromise bill passed the Senate by a vote of 73–27, quickly passed through the conference committee, which adopted the Senate version of the bill, then was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law by Johnson on July 2, 1964.

One of the bill's opponents' most damaging arguments was that once passed, the bill would require forced busing to achieve certain racial quotas in schools. The bill's proponents, such as Emanuel Celler and Jacob Javits, said it would not authorize such measures. Leading sponsor Hubert Humphrey wrote two amendments specifically designed to outlaw busing. Senator Richard Russell, Jr. later warned President Johnson that his strong support for the civil rights bill "will not only cost you the South, it will cost you the election". Johnson, however, went on to win the 1964 election by one of the biggest landslides in American history. The South, which had five states swing Republican in 1964, became a stronghold of the Republican Party by the 1990s. Although majorities in both parties voted for the bill, there were notable exceptions. Though he opposed forced segregation, Republican 1964 presidential candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, voted against the bill, remarking, "You can't legislate morality." Goldwater had supported previous attempts to pass civil rights legislation in 1957 and 1960 as well as the 24th Amendment outlawing the poll tax. He stated that the reason for his opposition to the 1964 bill was Title II, which in his opinion violated individual liberty and states' rights. Democrats and Republicans from the Southern states opposed the bill and led an unsuccessful 60 working day filibuster, including Senators Albert Gore, Sr. (D TN) and J. William Fulbright (D AR), as well as Senator Robert Byrd (D WV), who personally filibustered for 14 hours straight.

There were white business owners who claimed that Congress did not have the constitutional authority to ban segregation in public accommodations. For example, Moreton Rolleston, the owner of a motel in Atlanta, Georgia, said he should not be forced to serve black travelers, saying, "the fundamental question [ ] is whether or not Congress has the power to take away the liberty of an individual to run his business as he sees fit in the selection and choice of his customers". Rolleston claimed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a breach of the Fourteenth Amendment and also violated the Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments by depriving him of "liberty and property without due process". When local college students in Orangeburg, South Carolina, attempted to desegregate a bowling alley in 1968, they were violently attacked, leading to rioting and what became known as the "Orangeburg massacre." Resistance by school boards continued into the next decade, with the most significant declines in black white school segregation only occurring at the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s in the aftermath of the Green v. County School Board of New Kent County (1968) court decision.

In June 2020, the U. S. Supreme Court ruled in three cases (Bostock v. Clayton County, Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda, and R. G. & G. R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which barred employers from discriminating on the basis of sex, precluded employers from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Afterward, USA Today stated that in addition to LGBTQ employment discrimination, "[t]he court's ruling is likely to have a sweeping impact on federal civil rights laws barring sex discrimination in education, health care, housing and financial credit."

Title I barred unequal application of voter registration requirements. This title did not eliminate literacy tests, which acted as one barrier for black voters, other racial minorities, and poor whites in the South or address economic retaliation, police repression, or physical violence against nonwhite voters. While the Act did require that voting rules and procedures be applied equally to all races, it did not abolish the concept of voter "qualification". It accepted the idea that citizens do not have an automatic right to vote but would have to meet standards beyond citizenship. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 directly addressed and eliminated most voting qualifications beyond citizenship.

Title III prohibited state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, color, religion, or national origin.

Title IV enforced the desegregation of public schools and authorized the U. S. Attorney General to file suits to enforce said act.

Title V expanded the Civil Rights Commission established by the earlier Civil Rights Act of 1957 with additional powers, rules, and procedures.

In 2012, the EEOC ruled that employment discrimination on the basis of gender identity or transgender status is prohibited under Title VII. The decision held that discrimination on the basis of gender identity qualified as discrimination on the basis of sex whether the discrimination was due to sex stereotyping, discomfort with a transition, or discrimination due to a perceived change in the individual's sex. In 2014, the EEOC initiated two lawsuits against private companies for discrimination on the basis of gender identity, with additional litigation under consideration. as of 2014, Commissioner Chai Feldblum is making an active effort to increase awareness of Title VII remedies for individuals discriminated against on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. On December 15, 2014, under a memorandum issued by Attorney General Eric Holder, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) took a position aligned with the EEOC's, namely that the prohibition of sex discrimination under Title VII encompassed the prohibition of discrimination based on gender identity or transgender status. DOJ had already stopped opposing claims of discrimination brought by federal transgender employees. The EEOC in 2015 reissued another non binding memo, reaffirming its stance that sexual orientation was protected under Title VII. In October 2017, Attorney General Jeff Sessions withdrew the Holder memorandum. According to a copy of Sessions' directive reviewed by BuzzFeed News, he stated that Title VII should be narrowly interpreted to cover discrimination between "men and women". Sessions stated that as a matter of law, "Title VII does not prohibit discrimination based on gender identity per se." Devin O'Malley, on behalf of the DOJ, said, "the last administration abandoned that fundamental principle [that the Department of Justice cannot expand the law beyond what Congress has provided], which necessitated today's action." Sharon McGowan, a lawyer with Lambda Legal who previously served in the Civil Rights division of DOJ, rejected that argument, saying "[T]his memo is not actually a reflection of the law as it isit's a reflection of what the DOJ wishes the law were" and "The Justice Department is actually getting back in the business of making anti transgender law in court." The Act amended Title VII and gave EEOC authority to initiate its own enforcement litigation. The EEOC now played a major role in guiding judicial interpretations of civil rights legislation.

After the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, the Supreme Court upheld the law's application to the private sector, on the grounds that Congress has the power to regulate commerce between the States. The landmark case Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States established the law's constitutionality, but did not settle all the legal questions surrounding it.

In the 1974 case Lau v. Nichols, the Supreme Court ruled that the San Francisco school district was violating non English speaking students' rights under the 1964 act by placing them in regular classes rather than providing some sort of accommodation for them.

In Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp., a 1971 Supreme Court case about the Act's gender provisions, the Court ruled that a company could not discriminate against a potential female employee because she had a preschool age child unless it did the same with potential male employees.

Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, established that discrimination related to non conformity of gender stereotypical behavior is unallowable under Title VII.

Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., further ruled that same sex harassment is discrimination under Title VII.

On June 22, 2006, in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White, the Supreme Court held that White's reassignment to from forklift operator to less desirable duties as a track laborer as well as her suspension without pay after complaining about workplace sexual harassment constituted retaliatory discrimination. This was a landmark case because it clarified that Title VII’s retaliation provision is not confined to harmful acts occurring at the workplace or are related to employment. Title VII’s anti discrimination provision prevents actions including a hire, a discharge, a change in compensation, conditions, privileges, opportunities, or status of employment. However, Title VII’s retaliation provision contains no such limiting language. The definition of retaliation against a complainant of sexual harassment was changed to encompass any unfavorable job decision or treatment that might deter a "reasonable worker" from filing a discrimination claim or from supporting one. In the opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that a business that discriminates against homosexual or transgender individuals is discriminating "for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex." Thus discrimination against homosexual and transgender employees is a form of sex discrimination, which is forbidden under Title VII. Bostock was consolidated with Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda. as well as Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital in the Eleventh Circuit.

R. G. & G. R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined that Title VII covers gender identity, including transgender status.

The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990—which has been called "the most important piece of federal legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964"—was influenced both by the structure and substance of the previous Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act was arguably of equal importance, and "draws substantially from the structure of that landmark legislation [Civil Rights Act of 1964]". The Americans with Disabilities Act paralleled its landmark predecessor structurally, drawing upon many of the same titles and statutes. For example, "Title I of the ADA, which bans employment discrimination by private employers on the basis of disability, parallels Title VII of the Act". Similarly, Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, "which proscribes discrimination on the basis of disability in public accommodations, tracks Title II of the 1964 Act while expanding upon the list of public accommodations covered." The Americans with Disabilities Act extended "the principle of nondiscrimination to people with disabilities", an idea unsought in the United States before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act also influenced later civil rights legislation, such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, aiding not only African Americans, but also women.