Civil Rights Act of 1964 78 Stat. 241

• Author: Theodore Eisenberg
• Pages: 405-407

Page 405

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 signified many changes. For JOHN F. KENNEDY, prompted by southern resistance to DESEGREGATION orders and violent responses to peaceful CIVIL RIGHTS protests, proposing the measure symbolized an aggressive new attitude toward RACIAL DISCRIMINATION. For LYNDON JOHNSON, who supported the act after Kennedy's assassination, it marked a turn away from southern regionalism and toward national leadership on civil rights matters. For Congress, the act ended a century of nonexistent or ineffective civil rights laws and was the first civil rights measure with respect to which the Senate invoked CLOTURE. For blacks, the act was the first major legislative victory since Reconstruction and the most far-reaching civil rights measure in American history.

The act consists of eleven titles. Titles I and VIII reinforce voting rights provisions of the CIVIL RIGHTS ACTS OF 1957 and 1960 and limit the use of LITERACY TESTS to measure voter qualifications. (See also VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1970.) Titles III and IV, in provisions deleted from the bills that became the 1957 and 1960 acts, authorize court actions by the ATTORNEY GENERAL to challenge segregated public facilities and schools. Title V amends provisions governing the CIVIL RIGHTS COMMISSION. Title IX authorizes appeal from orders remanding to state courts civil rights cases that have been removed to federal court and authorizes the Attorney General to intervene in EQUAL PROTECTION cases. Title X establishes a Community Relations Service to assist communities in resoving discrimination disputes. Title XI deals with miscellaneous matters. The most important parts of the law are Title II, forbidding discrimination in PUBLIC ACCOMMODATION; Title VI, forbidding discrimination in federally assisted programs; and Title VII, forbidding EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION. In 1972, Congress extended Title VII's coverage to most government employees. It does not cover religious institutions.

Congress shaped the 1964 act with a keen awareness of previously declared constitutional limitations on ANTIDISCRIMINATION LEGISLATION. Title II's ban on discrimination in public accommodations and Title VII's ban on employment discrimination are limited to those entities whose operations affect INTERSTATE COMMERCE. By limiting these provisions to establishments and employers affecting commerce, Congress sought to avoid the CIVIL RIGHTS CASES '(1883) determination that Congress lacks power under the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT to outlaw discrimination by private citizens, even in such a quasi-public area as that of public accommodations. Unlike its power to enforce the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress's COMMERCE CLAUSE power is not limited to STATE ACTION. In HEART OF ATLANTA MOTEL, INC. V. UNITED STATES, (1964) and KATZENBACH V. MCCLUNG (1964) the Court upheld Title II as a valid exercise of the commerce power and the power to regulate interstate travel. Under the Court's subsequent...