The 'Effects' of Civil Rights Policy: A Comparative Analysis of Voting Rights, Equal Employment, and Fair Housing Legislation

Northwestern University, Evanston IL

Investigators

Abstract

Between 1964 and 1968, Congress enacted three far-reaching civil rights statutes banning racial discrimination in voting, employment, and housing. Not all were equally effective, however. Civil rights policy scholars concur that voting rights was by far the most successful of the three; that fair housing policy was a general failure; and that equal employment policy achieved a moderate level of effectiveness. This proposal is thus motivated by a straightforward research question: why did each of these major civil rights laws experience such divergent outcomes? The investigator proposes to answer this question by conducting a comparative analysis of voting rights, equal employment, and fair housing enforcement. Challenging conventional political institutional theories of civil rights policy outcomes, the author proposes a law-centered explanation derived from on-going disputes within law and society scholarship. The author argues that how the text of each statute was legally constructed and interpreted by lawmakers, agency administrators, and federal courts holds the key to understanding why some civil rights policies did better/worse than others. Specifically, the author proposes the following core hypothesis: divergent outcomes in voting rights, equal employment, and fair housing policy can be explained by the extent to which each policy incorporated and codified the group-centered "effects test" for defining, proving, and remedying unlawful discrimination. The group-centered effects test focuses on systemic group disadvantage rather than individual complaints, discriminatory consequences rather than discriminatory intent, and substantive group results rather than formal procedural justice. The data will consist predominantly of primary historical documents - both governmental and nongovernmental - to be collected at various archives in the Washington, D.C. area. The data will be analyzed with the use of analytic narrative to guide empirical and theoretical comparisons across these three cases of civil rights policy outcomes. This research will illuminate the connection between legislative intent and legislative effects. The findings will contribute to a better understanding of how the design of legislation matters for insuring implementation that achieves the legislative purpose.