The Civil Rights Act, enacted in 1964, is considered the signature legislative achievement of the civil rights movement. The law led to the ban of employment discrimination based on religion, nationality, race, skin color, and sex. It also marked the end of segregation in public places. The law was first proposed by President John Kennedy but was not enacted because of the strong opposition from the congress's southern members. However, it was later made law by President Lyndon Johnson, Kennedy's successor. The Act slowly expanded with time as other civil rights legislation like Voting Rights Act passed. Among important achievements that have stemmed from the Civil Rights Act is the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Workers who have in any way experienced employment discrimination can use the EEOC as it is granted the power to file lawsuits against decimating companies on workers' behalf. Currently, the Civil Rights Act has expanded its protection to include the elderly, females in college athletics, and disabled Americans ( Friedlander & Gerber, 2018 ). The paper's primary purpose is to discuss the impacts of the Civil Rights Act on Human Resource Management, day-to-day organizational operations, and the amendments that have been made to the Act in the past five to 10 years.
Impacts of the Civil Rights Act on Human Resource Management
The Civil Rights Act resulted in a significant change in the Human Resource departments of different organizations. For instance, the law forced many employers to change their hiring techniques, terminating and promoting employees. The human resource department plays one of the most challenging tasks in any organization. On most occasions, the department is faced with a dilemma, where a decision made can positively affect the employer while affecting the employee negatively or vise versa. The department is usually tasked with looking after the best interests of the employee while at the same time ensuring that the employers' interests are met. While functioning as employees' advocates, HR is also expected to perform in the organization's interests ( Hahn, Truman & Williams, 2018 ). The Civil Rights Act made the HR department's role easier as it created guidelines that create a neutral ground of operation, with equal impacts on both the company and the workforce.
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For instance, according to the Civil Rights Act, an employee should report an issue regarding discrimination to the HR department to be tackled under the dispute resolution program to avoid involving other legal bodies outside the organization. Therefore, the Act gives the Human Resource Department the power to independently tackle discrimination issues and provides a company with enough time to fix problems without incurring extra funding legal proceedings.
Among the impacts that the Civil Rights Act has had on the Human Resource Department is creating a platform to hire, promote and mentor the best and well-skilled employees a field offers through the Equal Employment Opportunity clause. Although most organizations were not welcoming to the Equal Employment Opportunity clause at first, they have come to realize that it has significantly added value to their companies instead of hindering their operations ( Stewart & Brown, 2019 ). The HR department has managed to hire highly qualified personnel, despite their skin color, sex, and age, contributing significantly to improved production outcomes.
Impacts of the Civil Rights Act on the Day to Day Operations in an Organization
Legal issues with the government, employees, and the market management can only be avoided by having a human resource department well-versed with the state's laws. The Civil Rights Act's Title VII significantly controls any organization's everyday operations in the United States of America. The title demands that organizations exercise extreme caution when recruiting, terminating, paying, promoting, and disciplining employees.
Discriminatory issues against employees in the United States are only avoided by applying recruiting practices that are all-inclusive, which has become a standard operation ever since the enactment of the Civil Rights Law. To exercise inclusivity, an organization should go beyond relying on its employees to spread the word about recruitment when there are openings, especially when a large number of the workforce is from one gender, race, nationality, or religion. Therefore, the Civil Rights Act has made it a requirement to apply other recruitment techniques that promote diversity and allow people from different backgrounds with the required qualifications to access employment opportunities without any form of discrimination. If an organization advertises a job opening to a specific group of people, the advertisement is considered discriminatory ( Richardson, Schultz & Crawford, 2019 ). Therefore, through the Equal Employment clause in the Civil Rights Act, the public has the power to take legal actions against the company. However, suppose a person can only fill the vacant position from a specific group because of the employment opportunity's roles and responsibilities. In that case, the Civil Rights Act allows the organization to advertise to the target group without legal implications.
Another thing that the Human Resource Departments in organizations based in the United States have been forced to avoid to escape the Civil Rights Act's implications are having educational requirements when the education level does not relate to the job. They are also forced to avoid having tests that are not associated with the vacant task. Before the law was enacted, most organizations used to apply irrelevant measures to eliminate the high number of applicants and narrow it down to those who meet their cultural, racial, gender, and nationality preferences. Today, an organization can be legally penalized when reported to put in place measures unrelated to job qualifications as an attempt to minimize the number of applicants, thanks to the Civil Rights Act.
The Act has also extended its restrictions to making it illegal to ask applicants questions about time spent in prison or arrests in general. In the case it is realized that an organization uses arrest records to choose one applicant over the other, the company is held legally accountable under the Civil Rights Act. Human Resource Management departments are also required, under the Act, not to ask questions about age, worker's compensation history, citizenship, and disability when hiring to avoid legal penalties ( Powell, Meitl & Worrall, 2017 ). Although some organizations still do, filing a complaint by the applicants through the Equal Employment Opportunity department can attract legal implications against the firms.
Civil Rights Act Amendments in the past 5-10 years
In the past five to ten years, there have been no changes in the Civil Rights Act. Most of its original clauses are still in use to the present date. Given the continuous change and improvement of American society, some amendments to the Act are essential to make it more effective. For instance, there was a high level of gender inequality, which was considered normal when the law was enacted. The current society requires that both men and women be given equal treatment, especially in pay. Therefore, some of the new amendments of the Act can focus on bridging the gap between women's and men's salaries to promote gender equality in the workplace. Also, most organizations still discriminate against their employees and job applicants at different levels without facing the required legal implications as per the Civil Rights Act. Although the legal measures were documented, the enforcement procedures are ineffective, creating a leeway for most companies to violate the Act. Therefore, the government can create more strict criteria to monitor and ensure that organizations abide by the law to make it efficient in meeting the targeted course.
References
Friedlander, A., & Gerber, R. A. (2018). Welcoming Ruin: The Civil Rights Act of 1875 . Brill.
Hahn, R. A., Truman, B. I., & Williams, D. R. (2018). Civil rights as determinants of public health and racial and ethnic health equity: health care, education, employment, and housing in the United States. SSM-population health , 4 , 17-24.
Powell, Z. A., Meitl, M. B., & Worrall, J. L. (2017). Police consent decrees and section 1983 civil rights litigation. Criminology & Public Policy , 16 (2), 575-605.
Richardson, R., Schultz, J. M., & Crawford, K. (2019). Dirty data, bad predictions: How civil rights violations impact police data, predictive policing systems, and justice. NYUL Rev. Online , 94 , 15.
Stewart, G. L., & Brown, K. G. (2019). Human resource management . John Wiley & Sons.
