Race and Workplace Integration: A Politically Mediated Process?

Abstract

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 stands as one of the greatest achievements in U.S. history.Although the law made discrimination illegal, its effectiveness, especially Title VII coveringthe employment domain, remains highly contested. The authors argue that legal shifts produceworkplace racial integration only to the extent that there are additional political pressureson firms to desegregate. They examine fluctuating national political pressure to enforceequal employment opportunity law and affirmative action mandates as key influences on thepace of workplace racial desegregation and explore trajectories of Black-White integrationin U.S. workplaces since 1966. Their results show that although federal and state equalemployment opportunity pressures had initial successes in reducing racial segregation inworkplaces, little progress has been made since the early 1980s. They conclude that racialdesegregation is an ongoing politically mediated process, not a natural or inevitableoutcome of early civil rights movement victories