DIVERSITY | Offering a place for everyone
29 December 2008
The Act’s Powers
What the Civil Rights Act does, and how it works
This article is excerpted from the book Free At Last: The U.S. Civil Rights Movement, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs. View the entire book (PDF, 3.6 MB).
After two centuries of slavery, segregation, and legal inequality, and the resulting economic disadvantage, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave the federal government and private individuals the legal authority they needed to attack squarely racial (and gender — the act also bars discrimination on the basis of sex) discrimination.
This authority is spelled out in broad provisions, called “titles.” The major points include:
• Title I, which abolished unequal application of voter registration requirements.
• Title II, which prohibited discrimination in public accommodations. The title authorized individuals to file lawsuits to obtain injunctive relief (a court order ordering someone to do or not to do something) and allowed the attorney general of the United States to intervene in those lawsuits he deemed “of general public importance.”
• Title III, which authorized the U.S. attorney general to file a lawsuit, provided the case would “materially further the orderly progress of desegregation in public facilities,” where an aggrieved person was unable himself or herself to maintain such a suit.
• Title IV, which authorized the attorney general to file suit to force the desegregation of public schools. This provision aimed to accelerate the slow progress made during the decade since Brown v. Board of Education.
• Title VI, which extended the act’s provisions to “any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.” It authorized the federal government to withhold federal funds from any such program that practiced discrimination.
• Title VII, which prohibited employment discrimination by any business employing more than 25 people. It established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to review complaints of discrimination in recruitment, hiring, compensation, and advancement.
