[Host] This is your Captain speaking and let me be the first to welcome you to this explainer video about one of the most important anti-discrimination laws in U.S. history.

Waitso what?

Sorry.

Why am I using a pilot voice?

What does this have to do with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color religion, sex or national origin and specifically Title VII of the bill prohibits employment discrimination.

Pretty great rule, right?

But did you know that sex, meaning gender, wasn't included in the first draft?

That's right.

The story of how Title VII came to include gender is one of opportunism and perseverance.

For the first time ever, women would have a law to help to combat employment discrimination.

So this amendment was groundbreaking.

It was also kind of a late edition.

So who proposed this landmark addendum?

It was kind of an unlikely ally.

Representative Howard Smith from Virginia.

See, Smith was a segregationist who previously opposed any federal civil rights legislation and many scholars speculate on his true intentions about the proposed amendment.

Some say he introduced the amendment as a snide joke or as a poison pill that would be seen as so ridiculous that it would kill the bill and that his colleagues erupted in laughter when he proposed it.

Others speculate that he genuinely did believe it was a good idea to include the clause and didn't see the irony in supporting the rights of women and suppressing the rights of minorities.

Well, regardless of his rational Smith did not act alone.

There were multiple parties behind the scenes, including the National Women's Party, who had been lobbying to include sex discriminatio in law and policy for many years Representative Martha Griffiths of Michigan was also instrumental in the passage of Title VII and led the fight to keep se in the list of protected classes on the House floor.

Without the support of these activists, the amendment never would have survived.

[TV Host] “Congress passes the most sweeping civil rights bil ever to be written into the law and thus reaffirms the conception of equality for all men...” [Host] So, after Title VII the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began to do its job, and women had no problems whatsoeve with workplace discrimination.

Unfortunately... Oh, I'm being quite sarcastic.

Despite the passage of the bill, some people, including the chairman of the EEOC, Franklin D Roosevelt Jr. the son of the former president really did consider the provision to be a joke.

But the newly formed National Organization for Women wasted no time.

They wrote letters and organized protests to remind leadership that Title VII included women and expressed their outrage that the EEOC did not seem to care about that part of the law.

By the early 1970s, through organization and legal pressure, the feminist movement and their allies pushed the cour to enforce Title VII.

Flight attendants, in particular were in the vanguard in challenging sex discrimination in the workplace.

Airline companies had a lon history of implementing sexist rules when it came to the age, weight and marital status of their female employees and the determined, undaunted flight attendants challenged the sky high status quo.

Slowly but surely, they changed the industry and achieved equal treatmen not just for airline employees, but in workplaces throughout the country.

To learn more about this incredible story, you should watch the American Experience documentary Fly With Me.

I'm Sami Jarroush and that's What the History?

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