Civil Rights Act

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The '''Civil Rights Act''', whilst there have been many of that name, refers predominately to the 1964 legislation of the U.S. Federal government that finally saw the [[Jim Crow laws|institutionalised]] [[racism]] of the [[United States]] become the [[crime]] it always was. The act was signed into law by President [[Lyndon Johnson]] on July 2, 1964.  

President [[John F. Kennedy]] had proposed the legislation in his June 1963 speech "Report to the American People on Civil Rights", a few months before his assassination.<ref>[https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/televised-address-to-the-nation-on-civil-rights Televised Address to the Nation on Civil Rights] ''John F. Kennedy Presidential Library''.</ref>

Whilst ostensibly for the removal of racial [[discrimination]], the single word '[[sex]]' was added as an amendment by [[segregation]]ist [[Dixiecrat|Democrat]] {{wpl|Howard W. Smith|Howard Smith}} of [[Virginia]] during its passage through [[Congress]].<ref name=blake>[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/06/15/how-segregationist-paved-way-big-gay-rights-win-supreme-court/ How a segregationist paved the way for a big gay rights win in the Supreme Court] by Aaron Blake (June 15, 2020 at 8:26 a.m. PDT) ''The Washington Post''.</ref> The amendment was intended as a [[Intellectual dishonesty|poison pill]] by Smith to thwart the passage of the act, but Smith had miscalculated support within Congress for both the act and by the female representatives in the House (particularly {{wpl|Martha Griffiths}} and {{wpl|Katharine St. George||).}}<ref name=blake/> The effect of the passage of the Civil Rights Act was to not only outlaw racial discrimination, but also discrimination against women (discrimination on the basis of 'race, color, [[religion]], sex, or national origin').

Of course, passing a law and having it enforced are two different things, and change came slowly and often only at the end of legal cases that dragged on all the way to the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] where the Act was defended and defined and given the support it deserved. Many of those cases are largely forgotten, but others enshrined basic principles into law and have had a large impact on the whole [[Civil rights|civil rights]] issue in the United States.

Fifty-six years after the passage of the act, the Supreme Court finally recognized that the inclusion of the word 'sex' in the act also meant that discrimination on the basis of [[sexual orientation]] and [[gender identity]] is illegal.<ref name=blake/> Surprisingly, the majority opinion was written by conservative [[Donald Trump|Trump]] appointee Neil M. Gorsuch, "An employer who fires an individual for being [[homosexual]] or [[transgender]] fires that person for traits or actions it would not have questioned in members of a different sex. Sex plays a necessary and undisguisable role in the decision, exactly what Title VII forbids."<ref name=blake/>

==See also==
*[[American Equality Bill]]
*[[Equal Rights Amendment]]

==External links==
*[http://finduslaw.com/civil-rights-act-1964-cra-title-vii-equal-employment-opportunities-42-us-code-chapter-21 Read the whole thing!]

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{stub|law}}

[[Category:Civil rights]]
[[Category:United States law]]
[[Category:United States politics]]

Categories: Civil rights, United States law, United States politics