ABSTRACT
Thanks to the Civil Rights Act, much of the old-fashioned discrimination against black workers came to an end. But civil rights activists were also concerned about policies that did not seem discriminatory at first glance but often had the effect of making it difficult for blacks to get ahead. Congress then seemed to accept this approach when it amended the Civil Rights Act in 1972 without criticizing Griggs. Because the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was not altered fundamentally, and because the rule of law required that statues be applied as written and intended by the legislature, Ronald Reagan and William Bradford Reynolds held they had no choice but to oppose racial preferences and quotas. Because Congress had prohibited racial discrimination when it enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Reagan and Reynolds said that employers must be color-blind and nondiscriminatory.
