CIVIL RIGHTS ACT

(1964)
PUBLIC LAW 88:352
Cheyevna Beckedorff Duarte
POLS245B Courts, Public Policy & Legal Research
Prof.: Steven Ultrino
Introduction
Warren’s Court Decision:
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
■ When Brown’s case and four other cases related to school segregation first
came before the Supreme Court in 1952, the Court combined them into a
single case under the name Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka. 
■ At first, the justices were divided on how to rule on school segregation,
with Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson holding the opinion that
the Plessy verdict should stand.
■ In 1953, displaying considerable political skill and determination, the new
chief justice Earl Warren succeeded in engineering a unanimous verdict
against school segregation the following year.
■ In the decision, issued on May 17, 1954, Warren wrote that “in the field of
public education the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place,” as
segregated schools are “inherently unequal.” As a result, the Court ruled
that the plaintiffs were being “deprived of the equal protection of the laws
guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.”
(Oyez.org)
 Policy Resulted from Warren’s Court Decisions:
Civil Rights Act of 1964

■ In May 1955, the Court issued a second opinion in the case (Brown v.
Board of Education II), which remanded future desegregation cases to
lower federal courts and directed district courts and school boards to
proceed with desegregation “with all deliberate speed.”
■ Though well intentioned, the Court’s actions effectively opened the door
to local judicial and political evasion of desegregation. While Kansas and
some other states acted in accordance with the verdict, many school and
local officials in the South defied it.
■ Though the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education did
not achieve school desegregation on its own, the ruling (and the steadfast
resistance to it across the South) fueled the growing civil rights
movement in the United States.
■ Passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, backed by enforcement by the (National Archives)
Justice Department, began the process of desegregation in schools and
public facilities.
STEP 1: PROBLEM
IDENTIFICATION AND
DEFINITION
Segregation in the United States before the Civil Rights Act:
 Segregation was made law several times in 18th and 19th-century America as
some believed that black and white people were incapable of coexisting. 
 The first steps toward official segregation came in the form of “Black Codes”.
 Black Codes: dictated most aspects of black peoples’ lives, including where they
could work and live. The codes also ensured black people’s availability for cheap
labor after slavery was abolished.
 Mostly all public facilities and transportation were segregated
STEP 1: PROBLEM
IDENTIFICATION AND
DEFINITION
BACKGROUND
■ After the end of Civil War (1865) followed by the constitutional amendments (13th, 14th and
15th Amendments) that abolished slavery and expanded basic civil rights such as the right to
vote to all men, the United States still faced strict segregation guaranteed by the “Jim Crow”
laws which established the “separate but equal” doctrine. (U.S. Department of Labor)
■ Segregation was legitimized in 1896 when the U.S. Supreme Court declared in Plessy v.
Ferguson that facilities for black and white people could be “separate but equal.
■ Public Law 88:352 (Civil Rights Act of 1964) is a comprehensive legislation intended to end
employment discrimination on the base of race, color, religion, sex or national origin, as
well as to end segregation in public places.
STEP 2: AGENDA SETTING
PLACING THE PROBLEM ON
LAWMAKER’S AGENDA
■ Focusing events, in addition to policy entrepreneurs, play a crucial role in
demanding attention from both the public and policymakers.
■ In 1955, a year after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, Rosa
Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her
arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and would lead to other
boycotts, sit-ins and demonstrations (many of them led by Martin Luther
King Jr.), in a movement that would eventually lead to the falling of Jim
Crow laws across the South and demand further action towards the end of
segregation.
■ When John F. Kennedy entered the White House in 1961, he initially
delayed supporting new anti-discrimination measures. But with protests
springing up throughout the South—including one in Birmingham,
Alabama, where police brutally suppressed nonviolent demonstrators with
dogs, clubs and high-pressure fire hoses—Kennedy decided to act.
(Gallup, 1964)
STEP 3: POLICY FORMULATION
DESIGNING REGULATORY PUBLIC POLICY

■ The Civil Rights Act is a form of regulatory federal policy which emplaces new regulations
on how public facilities should be desegregated and also emplaces restrictions on
discriminatory behavior of employers.
■ The Civil Rights Act also contains a distributive aspect in which Titles contain sections that
authorize the distribution of Federal funds by Federal agencies in the means of grants, loans
or contracts in order to eliminate discrimination in federal programs. (Lees, 1965)
■ The legislation had been proposed by President John F. Kennedy during his civil rights speech
in June 1963, but opposed by filibuster in the Senate. After Kennedy was assassinated in
November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushed the bill forward, which in its final form
was passed in the U.S. Congress by a Senate vote of 73–27 and House vote of 289–126. The
Act was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964, at the White House.
STEP 3: POLICY FORMULATION
TIMELINE (Library of Congress)
■ 1954: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, held that public education and segregation of children in public schools solely on
the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other tangible factors were equal, deprived equal educational opportunities to
children of the minority group
■ 1955: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas II stated that Southern schools should comply with Brown I “with all deliberate
speed,” which white Southerners understood as allowing them to resist and only symbolically comply with school desegregation
■ 1957: The Civil Rights Act of 1957 established the Civil Rights Commission (CRC) to protect an individual’s rights to equal protection and
protected some civil and voting rights, but it lacked substantial enforcement mechanisms
■ 1960: The Civil Rights Act of 1960 guaranteed qualified voters the right to register to vote in any state and the right to sue a state official or
acting state official who prevented them from voting
■ 1961: Executive Order 10925 created the Committee on Equal Opportunity to combat discrimination in government employment and in
private employment stemming from government contracts (Kennedy)
■ 1961: Monroe v. Pape revitalized Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, by allowing individuals to sue government actors for
violations of civil rights
■ 1962: Executive Order 11063 banned racial discrimination in federally funded housing (Kennedy)
■ 1963: Equal Pay Act required employers to pay all employees equally for equal work, regardless of whether the employees are male or
female
■ 1963: Executive Order 11114 extended guarantees against employment discrimination to federally assisted contracts in the construction
industry (Kennedy)
■ 1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and employment; authorized the attorney general to
bring school desegregation suits and the federal government to withdraw funds from schools and other governmental entities receiving
federal funds if they discriminated; and provided enhanced enforcement mechanisms for protecting civil and voting rights
STEP 4: POLICY LEGITIMATION
CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT AND COURT PRECEDENCE
■ The Civil Rights Act was the catalyst factor for the passing of desegregation laws that were only
possible after the Supreme Court unanimous opinion which held that “separate but equal”
facilities are inherently unequal and violate the protections of the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
■ These anti-discriminatory laws were first legitimized in the U.S. Constitution by the Fourteenth
Amendment, they were never properly implemented until the Supreme Court overturned the
“separate but equal” doctrine established by Plessy v. Ferguson.
■ Though the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education did not achieve school
desegregation on its own, the ruling set a precedence that fueled the civil rights movement and
legitimized the constitutionality of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
■ Having broken the filibuster, the Senate voted 73-27 in favor of the bill, and President Johnson
signed it into law on July 2, 1964
STEP 5: POLICY
IMPLEMENTATION
■ “Act to enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to
provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute
suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to
prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and
for other purposes.” (H.R. 7152, 88th – 78 Stat. 241)
■ Federal government agencies were created to implement anti-discriminatory and desegregate public facilities and
employment opportunities. (Library of Congress)
■ Although segregationists attempted to prevent the implementation of federal civil rights legislation at the local level, an
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was established to ensure fair hiring practices.
■ Community Relations service was established to assist local communities with civil rights issues.
■ The legislation also authorized the US Office of Education to distribute financial aid to communities struggling to
desegregate public schools.
■ The powers of the Commission on Civil Rights were extended for further enforcement
■ Prohibition of the unequal application of voting requirements were implemented
■ The use of Federal funds toward discriminatory programs were forbidden by the legislation.
STEP 6: Policy Evaluation
2 Cases resulted from Warren’s legal precedence
■ By overturning the “separate but equal” doctrine, the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v.
Board of Education (1954) had set the legal precedence that would legitimize the Civil
Rights Act (1964) and also be used to overturn laws enforcing segregation in other public
facilities. 
■ In 1973, the United States Courts of Appeals, Tenth Circuit (Kansas), issued a decision in
U.S. v. Wyandotte County, ruling that a county jail’s policy of segregating prisoners by race
violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, since a vague fear of violence could not justify such a
policy.
■ In 1976, the Supreme Court issued another landmark decision in Runyon v. McCrary (Race
discrimination in private school admissions under 42 U.S.C. § 1981), ruling that even
private, nonsectarian schools that denied admission to students on the basis of race violated
federal civil rights laws.
OFFICIAL ACTORS
■ President
■ Senate and House of Representatives
■ U.S. Department of Justice
■ U.S. Department of Education
■ U.S. Department of Labor
■ Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)
■ Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
NON OFFICIAL ACTORS
Actors supporting the regulation
■ African Americans who were being segregated by law (e.g. The
Little Rock Nine)
■ Coalition of nonprofit organizations and religious groups (e.g.
SCLC; The Nation of Islam)
■ Coalition of Advocacy groups (e.g. NAACP; SNCC; CORE; Black
Panther Party; National Urban League)

Actors against the regulation

■ Segregationist organizations (e.g. Chicago Housing Activists;
Citizen’s Council)
■ White-supremacist groups (e.g. Ku Klux Klan)
■ White nationalist citizens that were in favor of segregation
■ Several public facilities owners
PROS

■ All Blacks were entitled to equal protection of the law guaranteed by the U.S.
Constitution through the Civil Rights Act.
■ Desegregation measures were properly implemented in public facilities throughout the
years.
■ The Act paved the way for the passing of future anti-discriminatory legislations.
■ New policies were created toward the expansion of civil rights to African Americans
and ultimately other oppressed groups of society.
■ The U.S. economy has been greatly benefitted with the improvements in work
conditions and equal opportunities to African Americans.
CONS

■ The Civil Rights Act was greatly controversial and took a great amount of time to be
implemented in its fullness.
■ The Act did not ultimately end racism and many protests from opposition continued
■ The Act contains loopholes such as exemptions from the employment discrimination prohibition
of Title VII for businesses of less than 15 people; exemption from the Public Accommodations
provision of Title II for small, owner-occupied motels and lodging establishments.
■ These exemptions continued to benefit racist individuals that pushed toward segregation even
after the passing of the legislation.
■ The Act did not include protection against discrimination of LGBTQ individuals or other
oppressed minorities.
SUMMARY
■ The Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been a landmark legislation, only possible after the
ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, enabling the United States to walk toward a
more fair nation by providing equal protection of the law to all citizens guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
■ The Act ended the application of “Jim Crow” laws, which had been upheld by the
Supreme Court in the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson, in which the Court held that
racial segregation claimed to be "separate but equal" was constitutional. 
■ However, the Civil Rights Act does not address every racial inequality that African
Americans face on a daily basis. A recent survey from Pew Research Center (2013)
finds that fewer than half of (45%) all Americans find that the country has made
substantial progress toward racial equality, mostly proven by growing cases of police
brutality against black individuals across the country.
■ In addition, the Act did not specifically address minority groups such as LGBTQ, the
Civil Rights Act was eventually expanded by Congress to strengthen enforcement of
these fundamental civil rights to other members of society.
■ The passage of the Act and its long-term implementation created precedence for future
civil rights policies and legitimized the claims of feminist movements and the LGBTQ
community.
■ In conclusion, the Civil Rights Act was nothing but only the beginning toward the
road of equality among all citizens in America.
(Pew Research Center, 2013)
WORKS CITED
1. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 490 (1954)
2. “Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Part 2.” National Archives and Records Administration. (December 7, 2020).
3. Patterson, J. T., & Freehling, W. W. (2001). Brown v. Board of Education: A civil rights milestone and its troubled legacy. Oxford University Press.
4. Public Law 88-352: 88th Congress, H.R. 7152: an Act. 1964. Washington, D.C.: U.S. G.P.O.
5. Loevy, Robert D. The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law that Ended Racial Segregation. New York: State University of the New York Press. 1997
6. Mayer, Robert. The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Michigan: Greenhaven Publishing. 2004.
7. Garrow, D. J. (1987). The Federal Courts and School Desegregation in the 1970s.
8. Berg, R. K. (1964). Equal employment opportunity under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Brook. L. Rev., 31, 62
9. Lees, J. D. (1965). The Implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964-Title VI and the Use of Federal Funds. Bulletin. British Association for American Studies, (11), 16-
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10. Pedriana, N., & Stryker, R. (2004). The strength of a weak agency: Enforcement of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the expansion of state capacity, 1965–
1971. American journal of sociology, 110(3), 709-760
11. “The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom Legal Timeline.” 2014. Legal Timeline - The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for Freedom |
Exhibitions - Library of Congress. (December 7, 2020).
12. McCone, John A. 1964. Implementation of Civil Rights Act of 1964 Washington, D.C.: Central Intelligence Agency. rep.
13. United States v. Wyandotte County, Kansas, 480 F.2d 969 (1973)
14. Runyon v. McCrary, 427 U.S. 160 (1976)
15. “King's Dream Remains an Elusive Goal; Many Americans See Racial Disparities.” 2020. Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project. (December 7,
2020).