NCJ Number
141369
Journal
Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy Volume: 14 Issue: 1 Dated: (Winter 1991) Pages: 8-12
Date Published
1991
Length
5 pages
Annotation
As legal rights, civil rights come complete with procedural restrictions and limitations on their remedies, and social changes that result from changes in civil rights laws occur in various ways.
Abstract
To workers, civil rights laws enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission represent doors of opportunity, although these rights are not immutable. They may be changed by Congress, interpreted differently by courts, and enforced more or less effectively by individual advocates and government agencies. Social changes that result from changes in civil rights laws involve the way people behave toward each other, wealth transfers, and the development of secondary cultures and bureaucracies. The Civil Rights Act of 1990 will dramatically alter America's social fabric. Workers will have stronger remedies, businesses will face greater liabilities, and incentives for employers to use numerical balancing within the work force will increase. The author contends that Section 11 of the 1990 Act is extremely ambiguous with regard to civil rights, discrimination, and remedies and that unelected judges should not be given an undefined mission of broadening civil rights laws. Rather, changes in civil rights laws should occur through democratic consensus-building processes involving elected officials. 17 footnotes