Editing Civil Rights Act (section)

===Aspects===

====Women's rights====
[[File:Civil Rights Act of 1964 - amendment adding "sex" -- high-resolution.jpg|thumb|upright=1.4|Engrossing copy of H.R. 7152, which added sex to the categories of persons against whom the bill prohibited discrimination, as passed by the House of Representatives<ref>{{cite book|url=https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6037151|title=Excerpt of the Engrossing Copy of H.R. 7152, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Showing Amendments|last=U.S. House of Representatives. Office of the Clerk of the House|date=September 25, 1964|via=US National Archives Research Catalog|series=Series: General Records, 1789–2015|access-date=September 25, 2017|archive-date=September 25, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170925231053/https://catalog.archives.gov/id/6037151|url-status=live}}</ref>]]

One year earlier, the same Congress had passed the [[Equal Pay Act of 1963]], which prohibited wage differentials based on sex. The prohibition on sex discrimination was added to the Civil Rights Act by [[Howard W. Smith]], a powerful Virginia Democrat who chaired the House Rules Committee and strongly opposed the legislation. Smith's amendment was passed by a teller vote of 168 to 133. Historians debate whether Smith [[Wrecking amendment|cynically attempted to defeat the bill]] because he opposed civil rights for Black people and women or attempted to support their rights by broadening the bill to include women.<ref name="Freeman">[[Jo Freeman|Freeman, Jo.]] "How 'Sex' Got Into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy," ''Law and Inequality: A Journal of Theory and Practice'', Vol. 9, No. 2, March 1991, pp 163–184. [http://www.jofreeman.com/lawandpolicy/titlevii.htm online version] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060423141747/http://www.jofreeman.com/lawandpolicy/titlevii.htm |date=April 23, 2006 }}</ref><ref>[[Rosalind Rosenberg|Rosenberg, Rosalind]] (2008), ''Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century'', pp. 187–88</ref><ref>Gittinger, Ted and Fisher, Allen, [https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act-2.html LBJ Champions the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Part 2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170831112137/https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2004/summer/civil-rights-act-2.html |date=August 31, 2017 }}, Prologue Magazine, The National Archives, Summer 2004, Vol. 36, No. 2 ("Certainly Smith hoped that such a divisive issue would torpedo the civil rights bill, if not in the House, then in the Senate.")</ref><ref name="'70s 245">{{cite book|title= How We Got Here: The '70s|last= Frum|first= David|author-link= David Frum|year= 2000|isbn= 0-465-04195-7|pages= [https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/245 245–246, 249]|publisher= Basic Books|url= https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/245}}</ref> Smith expected that Republicans, who had included [[women's rights|equal rights for women]] in their party's platform since 1944,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25835|title=The American Presidency Project|access-date=May 29, 2016|archive-date=June 24, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160624233257/http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25835|url-status=live}}</ref> would probably vote for the amendment. Historians speculate that Smith was trying to embarrass northern Democrats who opposed civil rights for women because labor unions opposed the clause. Representative [[Carl Elliott]] of Alabama later said, "Smith didn't give a damn about women's rights", as "he was trying to knock off votes either then or down the line because there was always a hard core of men who didn't favor women's rights",<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Dierenfield | first1 = Bruce J | year = 1981 | title = Conservative Outrage: the Defeat in 1966 of Representative Howard W. Smith of Virginia | journal = Virginia Magazine of History and Biography | volume = 89 | issue = 2| page = 194 }}</ref> and according to the ''[[Congressional Record]]'', laughter greeted Smith when he introduced the amendment.<ref name="Gold">Gold, Michael Evan. ''A Tale of Two Amendments: The Reasons Congress Added Sex to Title VII and Their Implication for the Issue of Comparable Worth.'' Faculty Publications –  Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History. Cornell, 1981 [http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=cbpubs] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060921222720/http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1010&context=cbpubs|date=September 21, 2006}}</ref>

Smith asserted that he was not joking and sincerely supported the amendment. Along with Representative [[Martha Griffiths]],<ref>[[Lynne Olson|Olson, Lynne]] (2001), ''Freedom's Daughters: The Unsung Heroines of the Civil Rights Movement'', p. 360</ref> he was the amendment's chief spokesperson.<ref name="Gold" /> For 20 years, Smith had sponsored the [[Equal Rights Amendment]] (with no linkage to racial issues) in the House because he believed in it. For decades he had been close to the [[National Woman's Party]] and its leader [[Alice Paul]], who had been a leading figure in winning the right to vote for women in 1920, co-authored the first Equal Rights Amendment, and had been a chief supporter of equal rights proposals since then. She and other feminists had worked with Smith since 1945 to find a way to include sex as a protected civil rights category, and felt now was the moment.<ref>[[Rosalind Rosenberg|Rosenberg, Rosalind]] (2008), ''Divided Lives: American Women in the Twentieth Century'', p. 187 notes that Smith had been working for years with two Virginia feminists on the issue.</ref> Griffiths argued that the new law would protect black women but not white women, and that that was unfair to white women. Black feminist lawyer [[Pauli Murray]] wrote a supportive memorandum at the behest of the [[Business and Professional Women's Foundation|National Federation of Business and Professional Women]].<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.jofreeman.com/lawandpolicy/titlevii.htm |first1=Jo |last1=Freeman |author1-link=Jo Freeman |title=How 'Sex' Got into Title VII: Persistent Opportunism as a Maker of Public Policy |journal=Law and Inequality |volume=9 |issue=2 |date=March 1991 |pages=163–184 |access-date=April 23, 2006 |archive-date=April 23, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060423141747/http://www.jofreeman.com/lawandpolicy/titlevii.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Griffiths also argued that the laws "protecting" women from unpleasant jobs were actually designed to enable men to monopolize those jobs, and that that was unfair to women who were not allowed to try out for those jobs.<ref>[[Cynthia Harrison|Harrison, Cynthia]] (1989), ''On Account of Sex: The Politics of Women's Issues, 1945–1968'', p. 179</ref> The amendment passed with the votes of Republicans and Southern Democrats. The final law passed with the votes of Republicans and Northern Democrats. Thus, as Justice [[William Rehnquist]] wrote in ''[[Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson]]'', "The prohibition against discrimination based on sex was added to Title VII at the last minute on the floor of the House of Representatives [...] the bill quickly passed as amended, and we are left with little legislative history to guide us in interpreting the Act's prohibition against discrimination based on 'sex.{{'"}}<ref>{{ussc |name=Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson |volume=477 |page=57 |pin= |year=1986}}.</ref>

====Desegregation====
One of the bill's opponents' most damaging arguments was that once passed, the bill would require [[desegregation busing in the United States|forced busing]] to achieve certain [[racial quotas]] in schools.<ref name="'70s 251">{{cite book |title= How We Got Here: The '70s|last= Frum|first= David|author-link= David Frum|year= 2000|pages= [https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum/page/251 251–252]|publisher= Basic Books|isbn= 9780465041954|url=https://archive.org/details/howwegothere70sd00frum|url-access= registration}}</ref> The bill's proponents, such as [[Emanuel Celler]] and [[Jacob Javits]], said it would not authorize such measures. Leading sponsor Hubert Humphrey wrote two amendments specifically designed to outlaw busing.<ref name="'70s 251" /> Humphrey said, "if the bill were to compel it, it would be a violation [of the Constitution], because it would be handling the matter on the basis of race and we would be transporting children because of race."<ref name="'70s 251" /> Javits said any government official who sought to use the bill for busing purposes "would be making a fool of himself," but two years later the [[Department of Health, Education and Welfare]] said that Southern school districts would be required to meet mathematical ratios of students by busing.<ref name="'70s 251" />