Howard W Smith REP

----1965 act?juust one year earlier, the same Congress had passed the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Pay_Act_of_1963" title="Equal Pay Act of 1963" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Equal Pay Act of 1963</a>, which prohibited wage differentials based on sex. The prohibition on sex discrimination was added to the Civil Rights Act by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_W.Smith" title="Howard W. Smith" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Howard W. Smith</a>, a powerful Virginia Democrat who chaired the House Rules Committee and who strongly opposed the legislation. Smith's amendment was passed by a teller vote of 168 to 133. Historians debate Smith's motivation, whether it was a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_amendment" title="Wrecking amendment" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">cynical attempt to defeat the bill</a> by someone opposed to civil rights both for blacks and women, or an attempt to support their rights by broadening the bill to include women.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-Freeman-26" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[26]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-27" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[27]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-28" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[28]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-'70s_245-29" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[29]</a> Smith expected that Republicans, who had included <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_rights" title="Women's rights" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">equal rights for women</a> in their party's platform since 1944,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-30" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[30]</a> would probably vote for the amendment. Historians speculate that Smith was trying to embarrass northern Democrats who opposed civil rights for women because the clause was opposed by labor unions. Representative <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Elliott" title="Carl Elliott" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: large; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; text-decoration-line: none;">Carl Elliott</a> of Alabama later claimed, "Smith didn't give a damn about women's rights...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,"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-31" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[31]</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Record" title="Congressional Record" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Congressional Record</a> records that Smith was greeted by laughter when he introduced the amendment.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-Gold-32" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[32]</a>Smith asserted that he was not joking; he sincerely supported the amendment and, indeed, along with Rep. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Griffiths" title="Martha Griffiths" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Martha Griffiths</a>,<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-33" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[33]</a> he was the chief spokesperson for the amendment.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-Gold-32" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[32]</a> For twenty years Smith had sponsored the Equal Rights Amendment (with no linkage to racial issues) in the House because he believed in it. He for decades had been close to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Woman%27s_Party" title="National Woman's Party" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">National Woman's Party</a> and its leader <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Paul" title="Alice Paul" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Alice Paul</a>, who was also the leader in winning the right to vote for women in 1920, the author of the first Equal Rights Amendment, and a chief supporter of equal rights proposals since then. She and other feminists had worked with Smith since 1945 trying to find a way to include sex as a protected civil rights category. Now was the moment.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-34" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[34]</a> Griffiths argued that the new law would protect black women but not white women, and that was unfair to white women. Furthermore, she argued that the laws "protecting" women from unpleasant jobs were actually designed to enable men to monopolize those jobs, and that was unfair to women who were not allowed to try out for those jobs.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-35" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[35]</a> 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 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rehnquist" title="William Rehnquist" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">William Rehnquist</a> explained in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritor_Savings_Bank_v.Vinson" title="Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson</a>, "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.'"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-36" style="text-decoration-line: none; background: none;">[36]</a>In 1977, the Supreme Court struck down state minimum height requirements for police officers as violating the Act; women usually could not meet these requirements.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-'70s_245-29" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[29]</a>On April 4, 2017, the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Seventh_Circuit" title="United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit</a> in Chicago, sitting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En_banc" title="En banc" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">en banc</a>, ruled that Title VII of the Act forbids discrimination on the basis of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_orientation" title="Sexual orientation" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">sexual orientation</a> by a vote of 8–3.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-67" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[67]</a><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-68" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[68]</a> Over the prior month, panels of both the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Eleventh_Circuit" title="United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit</a> in Atlanta and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Court_of_Appeals_for_the_Second_Circuit" title="United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit</a> in New York City had reached the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circuit_split" title="Circuit split" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">opposite conclusion</a>, finding that Title VII sex discrimination does not include claims based on sexual orientation.<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-69" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[69]</a><h2 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 1em 0px 0.25em; overflow: hidden; padding: 0px; border-bottom: 1px solid rgb(162, 169, 177); line-height: 1.3;">Influence</h2>Despite its lack of influence during its time, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had considerable impact on later civil rights legislation in the United States. It paved the way for future legislation that was not limited to African American civil rights. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americans_with_Disabilities_Act_of_1990" title="Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990</a>—which has been called "the most important piece of federal legislation since the Civil Rights Act of 1964"—was influenced both by the structure and substance of the previous Civil Rights Act of 1964. The act was arguably of equal importance, and "draws substantially from the structure of that landmark legislation [Civil Rights Act of 1964]". The Americans with Disabilities Act paralleled its landmark predecessor structurally, drawing upon many of the same titles and statutes. For example, "Title I of the ADA, which bans employment discrimination by private employers on the basis of disability, parallels Title VII of the Act". Similarly, Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, "which proscribes discrimination on the basis of disability in public accommodations, tracks Title II of the 1964 Act while expanding upon the list of public accommodations covered." The Americans with Disabilities Act extended "the principle of nondiscrimination to people with disabilities",<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#cite_note-70" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background: none;">[70]</a> an idea unsought in the United States before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Act also influenced later civil rights legislation, such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_Rights_Act_of_1965" title="Voting Rights Act of 1965" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a> and the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1968" title="Civil Rights Act of 1968" style="text-decoration-line: none; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Civil Rights Act of 1968</a>, aiding not only African Americans, but also women.==