1965 May 26

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., Becomes First Chair of New EEOC

 

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1944), became the first Chair of the newly created Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

The federal (EEOC) was created by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and began operating a year later as specified by the law.

Very quickly, the EEOC became embroiled in an internal controversy over whether Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act covered employment discrimination against women — despite the fact that Title VII of the law specifically mentioned discrimination on the basis of “sex.” President Lyndon Johnson had opposed adding sex to Title VII but did not veto the law after it was added because he saw race discrimination as the paramount issue in American society at that time. When Johnson signed Executive Order 11246 establishing affirmative action as federal policy he deliberately did not include women in the order. Under pressure from the rising women’s rights movement, however, he issued Executive Order 11375 on October 13, 1967 and included women.

Eleanor Holmes Norton became the first woman to chair the EEOC on May 27, 1977.

Visit the EEOC Home Page: http://www.eeoc.gov/

Read the best history of affirmative action from its very beginning: Melvin I. Urofsky, The Affirmative Action Puzzle: From Reconstruction to Today (2020)

See the list of laws enforced by the EEOC here

See also the EEOC’s list of prohibited employment policies and practices here

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