ABSTRACT
US anti-discrimination law creates the potential for law to promote employment equity and to address underlying historically-based systemic inequalities. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race, colour, sex, national origin and religion, has been the model for the expansion of anti-discrimination laws to prohibit other bases of discrimination, including age and disability. This chapter analyses the gains made with such legislation through the use of disparate treatment and disparate impact theories of discrimination. The chapter also analyses the weaknesses that keep the laws from making significant progress toward “substantive equality” that would achieve fundamental social and economic change. The chapter also proposes recommendations for reform that could make labour and employment law more effective in addressing systemic inequalities of class, race, and gender.
