I still remember the day my older sister went to apply for her first job. She was about seventeen and had looked at various employment opportunities around our neighborhood including back and retail stores. However, none of those job application experiences will ever compare to the one she had with Dollar Tree. She walked into the store and the employers wanted to know a little bit more about her. My sister began to give them a little insight into her very active lifestyle. She is Afro-Colombian, held various leadership roles in clubs, was involved in a plethora of school organizations, and was an active member of our church community. To her surprise, when the employers finished talking to her they denied her the job saying that she was an overqualified candidate. 
My sister is a one-in-a-million case of African Americans being denied employment because of an overqualified status. As a matter of fact, according to Forbes magazine, the rate of African-American unemployment is twice as high as the unemployment rate for Caucasian people (2018). This is often due to the systematic racial discrimination of employers and the government which the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was implemented to eliminate. Since the act was signed, it has benefited thousands of African-American employees.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) aimed to eliminate the discrimination of persons based on race, color, religion, or nation of origin (EEOC) with Title VII focusing specifically on employment discrimination. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which is responsible for enforcing the rights promised in the CRA, reported that out of the 76,418 cases filed under Title VII in 2018, 24,600 of them were due to racial discrimination. If you talk to a discrimination lawyer you will find one of the more monumental cases the title is known for protecting was the Hazelwood School District v. the United States case, which has advanced the employment rights of blacks significantly.
In the Hazelwood v. United States case of 1977, the Hazelwood school district was charged with discriminatory hiring practices against African-American teachers. The district was looking to hire new candidates for teaching positions. The personnel offices chose people based on their eligibility for state certification and those who submitted their applications sooner were most likely to be hired. However, the principals used wide discretion when hiring and received little instruction on how or who to hire. Nonetheless, the superintendents and district fully supported their selections (Quimbee). It was at the end of two years when the state recognized that out of all the teachers that were hired only 2% were African American. It was a shocking statistic when compared to the 15.4% of Black teachers that comprised the faculty of other districts in their vicinity. The district was then convicted for prima facie pattern discrimination against black candidates. There were enough academically qualified black teachers in the market at the time to have satisfied an equal hiring opportunity for both races. The results of the case included cautioning employers of all fields to ensure equal hire opportunities for blacks as well as whites.
When the court’s decision on this case is analyzed by discrimination lawyers in the present day, the results are shocking. According to Pew Research Center, in July of 2013, the unemployment rate for Whites was 6.6%, and for Blacks, it was 12.6%, double the percentage of their White counterparts. They acknowledge a common explanation given for this trend that states that blacks are the last to be hired, but the first to be hired. In other words, “the last to be hired in a good economy, and when there’s a downturn, they’re the first to be released,” according to William Darity of Duke University (Desilver, 2013). Forbes Magazine attributed to it by stating that due to the lack of wealth in the African American community, for every $100 a white family owns, a black family would only have $5.04 and that if this trend continues, by 2053 the median wealth for a Black household will be zero (Thompson, 2018).
This signifies that the court ruled that it was necessary to provide fair employment opportunities for both the black and white community, progressing toward eliminating employment discrimination in 3 steps. One, by giving blacks the fundamental right to have equal employment opportunities. Through the Hazelwood School District v. United States case, employers were made aware that they could not systematically reject the black community from entering the working sphere. This then allows African Americans to market themselves freely to employers and receive the same treatment and wages as whites. This rolls into step number two. Through the Supreme Court ruling, we are also ensuring that children will have access to a quality education which will reduce the use of racial discrimination in the labor force.
According to The Atlantic and a group of discrimination attorneys, one of the main causes of the wage disparity between races is because over the years African Americans have been denied access to quality education by the government. This primarily is seen through the Jim Crow era where black schools would receive less federal funding and resulted in poor education for black children. That would later have a ripple effect in the labor market as many employers refused to hire blacks because of their lack of skills which was ultimately created through discrimination. By ensuring equal hiring opportunities, we are steadily and subtly ensuring quality education for both races so that they can compete equally in the market. The final area that the Supreme Court’s decision through the CRA impacted was the wealth and rights of future employees in general. Once we have made sure that our children will be receiving a quality education and that discrimination is no longer a part of the labor system, we are delivering future generations of blacks and other minority employees to secure wealth and establishment for their families.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 came as an ointment to the oozing sores of America. It eliminated the employment discrimination of persons based on the criteria of race, color, religion, or national origin. Title VII specifically protected the rights of employees in the workspace. The Hazelwood School District v United States was a testament to the effectiveness of the act. It has played a serious role in implying that America should be well on its way to eliminating employee discrimination by ensuring equal hiring opportunities for both races, guaranteeing a quality education to each child to stop employee discrimination at its source, and implying that through continued efforts the wealth gap caused by discrimination will be closed benefiting the lives of all employees for generations to come.

Author: Carol Mina from Berry College