Title III, known as the Government Employee
Rights Act of 1991, provided procedures to protect
the right of Senate and related government employ-
ees, regarding their public employment, to be free
of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion,
sex, national origin, age, or disability. The act also
extended procedures for judicial review and related
protections to previously exempt state employees.
Impact Workplace and harassment discrimination
cases brought to the Equal Employment Opportu-
nity Commission (EEOC) mushroomed throughout
the 1990’s. Sexual harassment claims exceeded ten
thousand every year from 1992 onward. Sex discrim-
ination cases exceeded twenty-one thousand cases
every year, accounting for 30 percent of all charge
filings in the decade, second only to approximately
twenty-nine thousand race discrimination annual
filings (38 percent). Further, class-action suits,
which had declined in number from eighty-one in
1985 to twenty-five in 1992, increased to seventy-five
in 1996. Women as a percentage of officials and
managers in the private sector rose by about one-
half a percentage point each year throughout the
1990’s, from a low of 29.3 percent in 1990 to a de-
cade high of 34.5 percent by 1999.
In 1995, the Regents of the University of Califor-
nia adopted a resolution to end the university’s pref-
erential treatment of disadvantaged ethnic groups
in hiring and in school admissions. In the Novem-
ber, 1996 elections, 55 percent of voters in California
approved Proposition 209, which eliminated prefer-
ential treatment of any job candidate on the basis of
race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in state
government hiring, public school admissions, and
public contracting. The ban took effect in 1997 after
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit de-
nied attempts to prevent implementation. The U.S.
Supreme Court declined to hear challenges to Prop-
osition 209.
Most Supreme Court employment discrimina-
tion cases throughout the decade involved women
and older persons. InHarris v. Forklift Systems, Inc.
(1993), the Court held that to be actionable as “abu-
sive work environment,” conduct need not seriously
affect an employee’s psychological well-being or
lead the plaintiff to suffer injury. InLandgraf v. USI
Film Products et al.(1994), the Court ruled against
retroactively applying the Civil Rights Act of 1991. In
Romer v. Evans(1996), the Supreme Court struck
down Amendment 2 of Colorado’s state constitu-
tion, which forbade the extension of official
protections to those who experience discrimination
on the basis of their sexual orientation. InO’Connor
v. Consolidated Coin Caterers Corp. (1996), the Court
held that a discharged worker need not show that he
or she was replaced by another person under age
forty to establish a prima facie case of discrimination
under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of- InOncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services(1998),
the Court ruled that sex discrimination consisting of
same-sex harassment is actionable under Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In bothSutton v. United
Airlines, Inc.(1999) andMurphy v. United Parcel Ser-
vice, Inc.(1999), the Supreme Court held that a de-
termination of disability under the Americans with
Disabilities Act must consider whether a person was
substantially limited in a major life activity when us-
ing a mitigating measure, such as eyeglasses where
the alleged disability is sight.
Subsequent Events InGrutter v. Bollinger et al.
(2003), the Supreme Court affirmed consideration
of race in admissions by the University of Michigan’s
Law School. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor also ex-
pressed her hope that the use of racial preferences
would no longer be necessary within twenty-five
years.
Further Reading
Fowler, W. Gary, Donald W. Jackson, and James W.
Riddlesperger. “Symbolic Politics Revisited: The
Bush Administration and the Civil Rights Act of
1991.”Contributions in Political Science396 (2004):
183-202. Reviews the political and social pressures
on George H. W. Bush’s administration to sup-
port the act in 1991 despite the veto in 1990.
Shull, Steven A.A Kinder, Gentler Racism? The Reagan-
Bush Civil Rights Legacy. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E.
Sharpe, 1993. Contends that George H. W. Bush
continued and heightened President Ronald
Reagan’s efforts to cut back on federal protection
of civil rights.
Skrentny, John David.The Ironies of Affirmative Action:
Politics, Culture, and Justice in America. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1996. Provides a his-
torical account of the development of affirmative
action.
Weiss, Donald H.Fair, Square, and Legal: Safe Hir-
ing, Managing, and Firing Practices to Keep You and
Your Company Out of Court. 4th ed. New York:
The Nineties in America Civil Rights Act of 1991 185