Educating the Public about Employment Discrimination
 Both to
prevent discrimination and to encourage voluntary compliance by
employers, the Commission always has emphasized education,
outreach, and technical assistance as mechanisms to provide
information about Title VII. Early educational programs included a
1965 White House Conference on Equal Employment Opportunity,
attended by 600 representatives of business, labor, government, and
civil rights groups. Input from Conference workshops helped to
shape early Commission guidelines and reporting requirements.
During EEOC's first year of operation, commissioners and EEOC staff
made nearly 600 speeches and other public presentations in 43
states. Indeed, during the next several years, EEOC continued to
educate the public about the new law by providing thousands of
presentations to civil rights and employer groups.
Education and outreach efforts during this time period included
print and video media. For example, more than 100,000 copies of a
pamphlet entitled "Equal Employment Opportunity is Good Business"
were distributed to the public in 1966. Later, in 1971, an
EEOC-sponsored film, "Voice of La Raza," narrated by film star
Anthony Quinn, was made available and widely shown to the employer
community, labor unions, and civil rights groups. The film dealt
with unique job discrimination problems faced by 10 million
Spanish-speaking Americans.
EEOC also conducted outreach and provided technical assistance
to civil rights and employer groups by hosting seminars and
conferences. In 1969, for example, EEOC hosted a conference on
affirmative action techniques that was attended by more than 40
trade association representatives. A similar conference was held in
1971 that attracted 70 trade associations and professional
organizations from a majority of the country's major industries. In
1970, in cooperation with the National Association of
Manufacturers, EEOC held a nationwide closed circuit teleconference
in which 2,800 employers received information on their legal
obligations under Title VII. Finally, as one other means of
providing technical assistance to employers to encourage voluntary
compliance, EEOC instituted a "new plants program" and a follow up
"area impact program." Together, these programs identified
companies that were building or opening new facilities in
communities of high minority population. In addition, they put
their personnel staff in contact with local community groups that
could refer job applicants for employment, including the NAACP, the
Urban League, and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Next: The
1970s
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