Affirmative action for women in employment Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Executive Order 11246, as amended by Executive Order 11375 in 1967, provided the initial legal basis for affirmative action for women in employment in the United States. Signed into law by President Johnson in 1965, Executive Order 11246 barred discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin in federal employment and in employment by federal contractors and subcontractors. In 1967, Executive Order 11375 expanded Executive Order 11246 to include women. After considerable pressure from women’s groups, the sex discrimination provisions of the orders finally began to be enforced in 1973. The order requires federal contractors and subcontractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” Specific actions outlined in the order include upgrades, transfers, recruitment, compensation, and training. Affirmative action for women in education Title IX of the Educational Amendments of 1972 provides the basis for affirmative action for women in education. Educational institutions receiving federal funds are required to take “specific steps designed to encourage individuals of the previously excluded sex to apply for admission.” Notwithstanding the law, women faculty members receive far lower salaries than their male counterparts. Overall, women faculty make 81 cents for every dollar men faculty are paid. The wage gap persists even among tenured faculty members. Women who are full professors make only 88.5% of the salaries of men who are full professors. Despite being the majority of high school and grammar school teachers, women are underrepresented in administrative positions. Women accounted for only 30% of all public school principals during the 1990-91 school year. Affirmative action in federal contracting In 1978, the Small Business Act, Section 8 (d), set aside at least 10 percent of federal contracts for “socially and economically disadvantaged businesses.” In 1989, the CITY OF RICHMOND vs. JS. CROSON COMPANY case restricted the reach of affirmative action laws, struck down minority set-asides for public contracts because no past history of discrimination was shown, and made state and local affirmative action programs subject to strict standards by the courts.

“The contractor will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” —President Lyndon B. Johnson Executive Order 11375   “Affirmative Action is a policy that grew out of many years of trying to navigate between two unacceptable paths. One was to say simply that we declared discrimination illegal and that’s enough. We saw that that way still relegated blacks with college degrees to jobs as railroad porters, and kept women with degrees under a glass ceiling with a lower paycheck. “The other path was simply to try to impose change by leveling draconian penalties on employers who didn’t meet certain imposed, ultimately arbitrary, and sometimes unachievable quotas. That, too, was rejected out of a sense of fairness. “So a middle ground was developed that would change an inequitable status quo gradually, but firmly, by building the pool of qualified applicants for college, for contracts, for jobs, and giving more people the chance to learn, work and earn.” —President Bill Clinton