Equal employment opportunity
Equal employment opportunity is equal opportunity in employment. Examples of legislation to foster it or to protect it from eroding include the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which was established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to assist in the protection of United States employees from discrimination. The law was the first federal law designed to protect most US employees from employment discrimination based upon that employee's (or applicant's) race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Public Law 88-352, July 2, 1964, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et. seq.). Employment discrimination entails areas such as firing, hiring, promotions, transfer or wage practices and it is also illegal to discriminate in advertising, referral of job applicants, or classification. The Title is pertinent in companies affecting commerce that have fifteen or more employees. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is section 705 of the title.
LGBT employment discrimination in the United States
In addition, two states, Indiana and Wisconsin prohibit discrimination on account of sexual orientation only; gender identity is not addressed. Indiana, in accordance with "Hively v Ivy Tech Community College", a ruling by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and Wisconsin through a statute enacted in 1982, which made Wisconsin the first state to have private employment protections for sexual orientation. Similarly to Indiana, the Courts of Appeals for the Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits, covering Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee, have found sex protections in the 1964 "Civil Rights Act" to include the category of gender identity.