Article
Race and Workplace Integration: A Politically Mediated Process?
American Behavioral Scientist
(2005)
Abstract
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 stands as one of the greatest achievements in U.S. history.
Although the law made discrimination illegal, its effectiveness, especially Title VII covering
the employment domain, remains highly contested. The authors argue that legal shifts produce
workplace racial integration only to the extent that there are additional political pressures
on firms to desegregate. They examine fluctuating national political pressure to enforce
equal employment opportunity law and affirmative action mandates as key influences on the
pace of workplace racial desegregation and explore trajectories of Black-White integration
in U.S. workplaces since 1966. Their results show that although federal and state equal
employment opportunity pressures had initial successes in reducing racial segregation in
workplaces, little progress has been made since the early 1980s. They conclude that racial
desegregation is an ongoing politically mediated process, not a natural or inevitable
outcome of early civil rights movement victories.
Keywords
- race,
- segregation,
- workplace,
- inequality,
- civil rights
Disciplines
Publication Date
2005
DOI
10.1177/0002764205274816
Citation Information
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Kevin Stainback and Corre L. Robinson. "Race and Workplace Integration: A Politically Mediated Process?" American Behavioral Scientist Vol. 48 Iss. 9 (2005) p. 1200 - 1229 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/donald_tomaskovic_devey/3/