Antidiscrimination Legislation (Update 1)

• Author: KimberlÉ Crenshaw
• Pages: 97-98

Page 97

Most antidiscrimination legislation forbids RACIAL DISCRIMINATION in such contexts as employment, housing, public accommodations, education, and voting. Similar legislation prohibits SEX DISCRIMINATION and, more recently, discrimination on the basis of age and handicap.

Enacted in response to racial unrest and mass civil protests, the CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964 was the first major federal antidiscrimination law in the modern era. Congress subsequently enacted the VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. Each act has been amended several times.

The most ambitious titles of the 1964 Act?Title VII, prohibiting EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION, and Title II, prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations?are now central features of the modern regulatory state. This legislation, however, initially faced stiff opposition. The opponents argued that the law represented undue federal intrusion into both the private sphere and state sovereignty and that the "law could not change what lies in the hearts of men." Modern antidiscrimination legislation rejects both these views. It effectively nationalizes nondiscrimination as a basic right of CITIZENSHIP, apparently laying to rest the post-Reconstruction view that the task of protecting CIVIL RIGHTS lay primarily within the powers of each state. Equally significant, the passage of antidiscrimination legislation seemed to embody a belief that law could significantly alter conduct and, eventually, "the hearts of men."

More recent developments suggest a fraying around the edges of antidiscrimination, both as national policy and as moral imperative. This fraying is suggested by debates over the status of antidiscrimination as a national priority, by judicial decisions limiting the reach of federal regulation, and by continuing racial hostilities that raise questions about the hearts of men and women.

Antidiscrimination law is not self-executing. Rather, its effectiveness is contingent upon the cooperation between the several branches of government and private citizens. Ideally, Congress creates the substantive protections and establishes the broad outlines of the enforcement framework, and the executive branch, ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCIES, and the judiciary elaborate these policies and apply them to specific contexts. The system works well when there is a general consensus about the importance of eliminating racial discrimination. In the last decade, however, the various governmental branches have been in conflict...