Equality of Opportunity

Education

Integration

The League is committed to racial integration of schools as a necessary condition for equal access to education. The kind of housing desegregation that would make school desegregation natural and easy still does not exist in many places, and congressional efforts have restricted federal administrative enforcement efforts.

As a result, busing became one means of achieving school desegregation. Across the country, Leagues worked to make sure that laws were obeyed peacefully—building coalitions, running rumor-control centers, sometimes going to court to get compliance. At the national level, the League worked consistently to oppose antibusing/anti-desegregation initiatives in Congress. The LWVUS opposed antibusing bills, antispending riders and the recurring antibusing constitutional amendment.

The League served as an amicus in Supreme Court challenges to the desegregation process. During 1982-84, the LWVEF maintained a desegregation clearinghouse and convened a workshop on metropolitan school desegregation to bring together League leaders and national policy experts.

Quality Education

The l974-76 LWVUS program included the phrase “equal access to…quality education,” reflecting League recognition that “equality” and “quality” ultimately are inseparable. However, the LWVUS has never undertaken a process for determining a common League definition of quality education that could serve as a basis for action nationwide. Therefore, when the definition of quality is a key factor in a state or local community, a local or state League must conduct its own study rather than relying on the LWVUS position to take action. Many Leagues that have member agreement on quality education in specific terms use their positions to support an array of local and state educational reforms. A number of Leagues have used this position to oppose private school vouchers. The LWVUS is a member of the National Coalition for Public Education, which opposes vouchers.

Tuition Tax Credits

The 1978 Convention directed the national board to oppose tax credits for families of children attending private elementary and secondary schools. Convention action was based on League support for equal access to education and support for desegregation as a means of promoting equal access. The League is concerned about the negative impact that tuition tax credits would have on the public schools by encouraging flight, particularly from desegregated schools. The League also supports federal efforts, through Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulation, to deny tax-exempt status to racially discriminatory “segregationacademies.”

Federal Programs

The League supports a range of federal education programs. Some are designed to meet the special educational needs of the poor and minorities. Others are designed to give women and minorities equal education opportunities.

The League worked for passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibits sex discrimination in educational institutions that receive federal aid. Subsequent League action focused on thwarting congressional attempts to dilute Title IX, as well as on advancing federal enforcement efforts. At the national level, the League played a role in the major court challenges to Title IX, defending key provisions and urging a broad interpretation of Title IX’s scope. In 1983, the League filed an amicus brief in Grove City College v. Bell, a major Supreme Court case that narrowed considerably the prohibitions of Title IX. In mid-1984, after the Court’s decision, the League supported efforts in Congress to pass new legislation clarifying congressional intent regarding the scope of coverage of Title IX and similar civil rights statutes.

In 2003, the League responded to an effort by the Department of Education to scale back Title IX. The LWVUS urged opposition to attempts to weaken the law and lobbied in support of congressional resolutions affirming that Title IX had made great progress in establishing equal opportunity for girls and women in education and in school athletics. In July 2003, the Department of Education affirmed its support for Title IX without change. In September 2004, the LWVUS signed on to an amicus brief in the case of Jackson v. Birmingham Board of Education in support of Title IX’s original intent of broad and effective protection against gender discrimination by ensuring that individuals who bring discriminatory practices to light are protection from retaliation and reprisal.

Under an LWVEF project to monitor sex equity in vocational education programs in 1981-82, several state Leagues evaluated progress toward meeting federal sex-equity mandates. Vocational education programs have significant impact on employment, particularly for women who have difficulty gaining access to training programs for higher paying jobs. Linkages between the League’s Education and Employment positions promoted increasing the enrollment of girls and young women in math and science courses, to prepare them for the jobs of the future.

Education Financing

Many state and local Leagues have identified inequities in education financing during the course of their own program studies and have worked for reforms. Action on school financing equity takes place predominantly at the state level, where school financing laws are made. With financial and technical support from an LWVEF grant, a number of state Leagues stepped up efforts to educate citizens about inequities and inadequacies of state funding systems.

Employment

The League has supported federal job training programs and is on record in favor of a full employment policy, that is, the concept of assuring a job for all those able and seeking to work. In 1978, the League supported passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins bill to promote full employment.

The League supported the public service employment (PSE) component of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Program (CETA) during the 1970s and worked for the passage of emergency jobs legislation in 1983, spearheading a “Call to Action for Jobs for Women” that resulted in more funding for the types of public-service jobs that women traditionally perform. In 1994, the League unsuccessfully supported passage of the Infrastructure Jobs Act and the Full Employment Opportunity Act, both targeted especially to urban areas.

Nondiscrimination and Affirmative

Action

Through legislative and regulatory approaches, as well as litigation, the League advocates affirmative action programs for minorities and women. Action has included a lawsuit to compel the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to issue goals and timetables governing the employment of women in nontraditional jobs and apprenticeship programs and prodding to ensure enforcement. The League has worked to combat administrative initiatives to restrict the enforcement authority of DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Since 1977, the League has supported measures to combat employment discrimination in Congress itself.

The League has been outspoken in its support of affirmative action programs and policies. That support has included filing amicus briefs in key affirmative action lawsuits, including Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp. v. Weber in 1979, Boston Firefighters Union, Local 718 v. Boston Chapter NAACP in 1983, Firefighters Local Union No. 1784 v. Stotts in 1984 and Williams v. City of New Orleans in 1983. The League has actively opposed attempts by OFCCP to weaken regulations that govern the federal contract compliance program. During the 1985-86 Supreme Court term, the League filed amicus briefs in three key affirmative action cases: Local 28 Sheet Metal Workers v. EEOC, Local 93 International Association of Firefighters v. City of Cleveland, and Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education. The Court reaffirmed the validity of voluntary race-based affirmative action in these cases.

In 1986, the LWVUS signed onto another amicus brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, Johnson v. Transportation Agency. In 1987, the Court held that public employers may adopt voluntary affirmative action plans to attain work force balances in traditionally segregated job categories—the first instance in which the Supreme Court upheld a gender-based affirmative action plan.

In 1988, the League participated in a Supreme Court amicus brief in Patterson v. McLean Credit Union. In its 1989 decision, the Court reaffirmed that Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1986, which prohibits racial discrimination in contracts, applies to private acts of discrimination. However, the Court also held that Section 1981 does not apply to racial harassment or other discriminatory working conditions that arise after an employment contract has been entered into.

Between 1984 and 1988, the League was an active player in successfully urging Congress to pass the Civil Rights Restoration Act, which restored four anti-discrimination laws that were narrowed by the Supreme Court’s 1984 Grove City v. Bell decision. Subsequently, the League endorsed the Civil Rights Act, which reversed a series of 1989 Supreme Court decisions that seriously weakened federal employment discrimination laws, and strengthened protections under federal civil rights laws. In 1990, the bill passed both Houses of Congress but was vetoed by the President. In 1991 a compromise bill was passed by Congress and signed by the President. The League did not actively support the bill, in part because it placed a monetary limit on damages for sex discrimination, including sexual harassment. In 1992, the League joined other groups in supporting the Equal Remedies Act, which would remove the monetary limit on damages in civil rights laws.

In response to continued congressional attacks, the League joined other concerned organizations in the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) to reaffirm strong support for affirmative action programs.

In both 2004 and 2006, the League joined with other organizations to oppose the “Federal Marriage Amendment,” which would permanently write discrimination into the United States Constitution by limiting fundamental protections such as health care benefits for same-sex partners.

In June 2008, the League joined with other organizations in support of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Amendments Act of 2008 (ADAAA), legislation designed to restore the ADA to its original intent and ensure coverage for disabled Americans in all aspects of society. The bill was passed by Congress and signed by President Bush.

Pay Equity

League work in the area of pay equity, or equal pay for jobs of comparable worth, stemmed from member concern over the feminization of poverty. The League played a key role at the national level through its work with the broad-based National Committee on Pay Equity in the 1980s. In 1986 the LWVEF participated in an amicus brief before the U.S. Supreme Court in the pay equity case, Bazemore v. Friday. The Court ruled that a state agency may be held liable for disparities in salaries between blacks and whites, even if the disparities were caused by racial discrimination that occurred before the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

State and local Leagues also have endorsed legislative efforts to undertake job evaluation studies or to implement pay equity for public employees.

Fair Housing

The League made passage of the Fair Housing Amendments a priority in 1980. The legislation passed the House but was filibustered in the Senate. Another attempt in 1983-84 was put on hold in light of more pressing civil rights issues. The League also supported reauthorization of the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) in 1982.

LWVEF participation in a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)-funded project in 1979-81 enabled local Leagues to promote the entry of women into the mortgage credit market and sparked interest in the problems of single-headed households, displaced homemakers and discrimination against families with children.

In 1989-90, the League endorsed recommendations to Congress by the Women and Housing Task Force of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, which included enforcing the Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988. The act, for the first time, prohibited housing discrimination against families with children.

In 2005, the League urged Congress support the creation of the Affordable Housing Fund, a long overdue step toward addressing the housing crisis that confronts very low and extremely low income families. The League also urged members of the House to protect the activities of the nonprofit organizations that provide the bulk of housing services for our poorest communities.

Equal Rights

In May 1972, only weeks after congressional passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, delegates to the League’s national Convention overwhelmingly approved support of “equal rights for all regardless of sex” as a necessary extension of the League’s long-term support for equal opportunity for all. At the same Convention, delegates voted to support the ERA as one of the major ways to take action in support of the equal rights positions. With this decisive action, the League—a direct descendant of the original women’s movement—came full circle, to give priority support again to equal rights for women and men.

The foremothers of the women’s movement, in their 1848 Conventions at Seneca Falls and Rochester, New York, rooted the movement in a demand for women’s equality before the law. In those early Conventions, they also put forth resolutions on many specific rights. The right to vote came to be seen as the key that would unlock the door to the others. This vision sustained the National American Woman Suffrage Association, forerunner of the League.

When the 19th Amendment was passed in 1920, suffrage leaders divided on strategy. Some founded the National Woman’s Party, which sponsored the first ERA, introduced in Congress in 1923. Others—the founders of the League among them—decided not to push for an ERA. It’s hard for League members now to imagine the time in which the League actually opposed the ERA. It wasn’t for lack of concern for women’s rights. The League’s record on that point speaks for itself. Rather, it was a problem in priorities. At the League’s 1921 Convention delegates decided that an ERA might adversely affect new and hard-won state labor legislation, which offered some protection to tens of thousands of women working in nonunionized, unskilled jobs.

Moreover, though it was an organization of women, the early LWV wanted to affirm strongly that its interests and lobbying activities were not confined to women’s issues. The League in the 1920s and 1930s set the stage for future program development by focusing on a broad range of social issues. Many were, of course, of obvious concern for women: the Sheppard-Towner Act, which provided for federally funded infant and maternity care; the removal of discrimination against women in immigration and naturalization laws; equality for women in the Civil Service Classification Act; equal pay for equal work. During the same period, local and state Leagues worked to eliminate sex discrimination affecting jury duty, property rights, the treatment of women offenders and a number of other issues.

This pattern continued through the 1940s: the national League program included “removal of legal and administrative discriminations against women,” but a position in opposition to an ERA remained on the record until 1954. In that year the national program was restructured and the long dormant anti-ERA statement disappeared.

As the League became active in the civil rights struggle of the 1960s, members became more acutely aware of the parallels between the status of women and minorities. Many state and local Leagues pursued women’s issues with new vigor, and a strong push for women’s issues developed at the national level, culminating in the May 1972 Convention action.

Subsequent Conventions have reaffirmed the League’s commitment to the Equal Rights Amendment. The 1980 Convention took the League’s commitment a step further, voting to use the existing ERA position as a basis not only for ratification efforts, but also to work on gender-based discrimination through action to bring laws into compliance with the goals of the ERA.

In 1972, lobbying for ratification—and against rescission—on a state-by-state basis became a top LWV priority at the national level and in the states.

In 1979, the LWVUS organized the National Business Council (NBC) for ERA, the first formal structure designed to bring major business leaders across the country into the fight for ratification. In 1981, under the LWVUS/NBC partnership, a volunteer task force of advertising executives developed and produced radio ads designed to “sell” the ERA in seven unratified states. Throughout the media campaign, the LWVUS provided extensive technical and financial assistance to state Leagues and ERA coalitions, and worked to organize business efforts in the states.

Although the ratification process was not completed by the June 30, 1982 deadline, the League’s support of a constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the law remains as strong as ever. The League supported the reintroduction of the ERA in Congress in 1982 and helped lead a lobbying effort that culminated on November 15, 1983, when the ERA was narrowly defeated in the House of Representatives.

In July 1993, the League signed on to an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case of J.E.B. v. T.B. The brief argued that sex discrimination in jury selection is prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. League participation was based on support for actions to bring laws into compliance with the ERA. In 1994, the Supreme Court agreed, ruling that state laws allowing jury challenges based solely on sex are unconstitutional.

The League will continue to work to achieve the goals of the expanded ERA position. Issues addressed include action for pay equity and support for the Economic Equity Act, which includes provisions to eliminate sex discrimination in pensions and insurance. In 1996, the League endorsed the Women’s Pension Equity Act, legislation designed to make pension law simpler and more even-handed. Meanwhile, the League will continue to lay the groundwork for passage and ratification of the ERA.

On the international front, the League of Women Voters supports the United Nations Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and is on the Steering Committee of the NGO UNICEF Working Group on Girls at the UN. The Working Group formed an International Network for Girls, a global advocacy network on behalf of the Girl Child.