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.
Bennett Amendment
The Supreme Court of the United States first examined the question of the impact of the Bennett Amendment in the 1981 case "County of Washington v. Gunther", 452 U.S. 161. The case originated in 1974 in Oregon when a group of four female county prison guards sued the County of Washington for unequal wages, alleging that their pay was less than that of male guards for no reason other than sexual discrimination. The district court disagreed, finding that male guards were responsible for overseeing more prisoners and also that female guards spent some of their time in clerical tasks, but also found as a matter of law that a sex-based wage discrimination claim cannot be brought under Title VII unless it satisfies the equal work standard of the Equal Pay Act of 1963.