Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T10:34:53.242Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Enforcement of Civil Rights Law in Private Workplaces: The Effects of Compliance Reviews and Lawsuits Over Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Alexandra Kalev  and
Frank Dobbin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Has federal antidiscrimination law been effective in moving women and minorities into management? Early studies show that government affirmative action reviews improved the numbers, and rank, of blacks, but evidence of what has happened since 1980 is sparse. There is little evidence that civil rights lawsuits improved the employment status of women or African Americans. We examine establishment-level effects of compliance reviews and lawsuits on the percentage of women and blacks in management. We find that compliance reviews, which alter organizational routines, had stronger and more lasting effects than lawsuits, which create disincentives to discriminate. We also find that deregulation was more consequential for compliance reviews than for lawsuits: Compliance reviews initiated in the 1980s were less effective than those initiated in the 1970s. Not so for lawsuits. Compared to lawsuits, compliance reviews appear to have a greater capacity to elicit lasting organizational change, but their effects are mediated by the regulatory environment.

Type
Symposium: New Legal Realism
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 31 , Issue 4 , Fall 2006 , pp. 855 - 903
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2006 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Bernard E. 1996. The Ebb and Flow of Enforcing Executive Order 11246. The American Economic Review 86:298–301.Google Scholar
Appelbaum, Eileen, Bailey, Thomas, and Berg, Peter. 2000. The New American Workplace: Transforming Work Systems in the United States. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Google Scholar
Ashtenfelter, Orley, and Heckman, James. 1976. Measuring the Effect of an Antidiscrimination Program. Evaluating the Labor Market Effects of Social Program, eds. Ashtenfelter, Orley and Blum, James. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Industrial Relations Section.Google Scholar
Baldi, Stephan, and McBrier, Debra B. 1997. Do the Determinants of Promotion Differ for Blacks and Whites? Evidence from the U.S. Labor Market. Work and Occupations 24:478–97.Google Scholar
Bardach, Eugene, and Kagan, Robert A. 1982. Going by the Book: The Problem of Regulatory Unreasonableness. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Google Scholar
Baron, James N. 1984. Organizational Perspectives on Stratification. Annual Review of Sociology 10:37–69.Google Scholar
Baron, James N., Mittman, Brian S., and Newman, Andrew E. 1991. Targets of Opportunity: Organizational and Environmental Determinants of Gender Integration within the California Civil Services, 1976–1985. American Journal of Sociology 96:1362–1401.Google Scholar
Baron, James N., and Bielby, William T. 1980. Bringing the Firms Back In: Stratification, Segmentation, and the Organization of Work. American Sociological Review 45:737–65.Google Scholar
Baron, James N., and Bielby, William T. 1985. Organizational Barriers to Gender Equality: Sex Segregation of Jobs and Opportunities. In Gender and the Life Course, ed. Rossi, Alice S. New York: Aldine.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary. 1968. Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach. Journal of Political Economy 76:169–217.Google Scholar
Becker, Gary Stanley. 1964. Human Capital: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis with Special Reference to Education. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research. Google Scholar
Bell, Ella L.J.E., and Nkomo, Stella M. 1994. Barriers to Work Place Advancement Experienced by African-Americans. Washington, DC: Glass Ceiling Commission, U.S. Department of Labor.Google Scholar
Belz, Herman. 1991. Equality Transformed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions. Google Scholar
Bentham, Jeremy. 1840. Theory of Legislation: Volume 1, Principles of the Civil Code. Boston: Weeks, Jordan. Google Scholar
Bielby, William T. 1981. Models of Status Attainment. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 1:3–26.Google Scholar
Bielby, William T., and Baron, James N. 1986. Men and Women at Work: Sex Segregation and Statistical Discrimination. American Journal of Sociology 91:759–99.Google Scholar
Bisom-Rapp, Susan. 1999. Bulletproofing the Workplace: Symbol and Substance in Employment Discrimination Law Practice. Florida State University Law Review 26:959–1049.Google Scholar
Blau, Francine D., and Beller, Andrea. 1992. Black White Earnings over the 1970s and 1980s: Gender Differences in Trends. The Review of Economics and Statistics 74:276–86.Google Scholar
Blau, Peter M., and Duncan, Otis D. 1967. The American Occupational Structure. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Google Scholar
Blum, Terry C., Fields, Dail L., and Goodman, Jodi S. 1994. Organization-Level Determinants of Women in Management. Academy of Management Journal 37:241–68.Google Scholar
Blumrosen, Alfred W. 1993. Modern Law: The Law Transmission System and Equal Employment Opportunity. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Google Scholar
Bureau-of-National-Affairs. 1986. Work and Family: A Changing Agenda. Washington, DC: Bureau of National Affairs. Google Scholar
Burt, Ronald S. 1998. The Gender of Social Capital. Rationality and Society 10:5–46.Google Scholar
Cohen, Lisa E., Broschak, Joseph P., and Haveman, Heather A. 1998. And Then There Were More? The Effect of Organizational Sex Composition on the Hiring and Promoting of Managers. American Sociological Review 63:711–27.Google Scholar
Detlefsen, Robert. 1991. Civil Rights under Reagan. San Francisco: ICS PRESS Institute for Contemporary Studies. Google Scholar
Diver, Collin S. 1980. A Theory of Regulatory Enforcement. Public Policy 28:257–99.Google Scholar
Donohue, John J. III, and Siegelman, Peter. 1991. The Changing Nature of Employment Discrimination Litigation. Stanford Law Review 43:983–1033.Google Scholar
Donohue, John J. III, and Siegelman, Peter. 2005. The Evolution of Employment Discrimination Law in the 1990s: A Preliminary Empirical Investigation. In Handbook on Employment Discrimination Research: Rights and Realities, eds. Nielsen, Laura Beth and Nelson, Robert L. New York: Kluwer Academic Press.Google Scholar
Donohue, John J. III, and Heckman, James. 1991. Continuous Versus Episodic Change—the Impact of Civil-Rights Policy on the Economic-Status of Blacks. Journal of Economic Literature 29:1603–43.Google Scholar
DuRivage, Virginia. 1985. The OFCCP under the Reagan Administration: Affirmative Action in Retreat. Labor Law Journal 36:1401–40.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 1990. Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in the American Workplace. American Journal of Sociology 95:1401–40.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B. 1992. Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law. American Journal of Sociology 97:1531–1976.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., Fuller, Sally Riggs, and Mara-Drita, Iona. 2001. Diversity Rhetoric and the Managerialization of the Law. American Journal of Sociology 106:158–1641.Google Scholar
Edelman, Lauren B., and Petterson, Stephen M. 1999. Symbols and Substance in Organizations Response to Civil Rights Law. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 17:107–35.Google Scholar
Edwards, Patrick Ronald. 1991. Choices That Increase Compliance. Policy Studies Journal 10:6–27.Google Scholar
EEOC. n.d. Instructions for Standard Form 100 (Eeo-1), Washington, DC: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Available online at: http://www.eeoc.gov/stats/jobpat/e1instruct.html. Last retrieved April 19, 2004.Google Scholar
Elvira, Marta M., and Town, Robert. 2001. The Effects of Race and Worker Productivity on Performance Evaluations. Industrial Relations 40:571–90.Google Scholar
Elvira, Marta M., and Zatzick, Christopher D. 2002. Who's Displaced First? The Role of Race in Layoff Decisions. Industrial Relations 41:329–61.Google Scholar
Featherman, David L., and Hauser, Robert M. 1978. Opportunity and Change. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Felmlee, Diane H., and Hargens, Lowell L. 1988. Estimation and Hypothesis Testing for Seemingly Unrelated Regression: A Sociological Application. Social Science Research 17:384–99.Google Scholar
Friedrich, Robert J. 1982. In Defense of Multiplicative Terms in Multiple Regression. American Journal of Political Science 26:799–833.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Morris, and Smith, Robert. 1976. The Estimated Impact of Anti-Discrimination Laws Aimed at Federal Contractors. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 29:523–43.Google Scholar
Hammerman, Herbert. 1984. A Decade of New Opportunities: Affirmative Action in the 1970s. Washington, DC: The Potomac Institute. Google Scholar
Hanushek, Erin A., and Jackson, John E. 1977. Statistical Methods for Social Scientists. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar
Heckman, James J., and Wolpin, Kenneth. 1976. Does the Contract Compliance Program Work? An Analysis of Chicago Data. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 29:544–64.Google Scholar
Heckman, James J., and Payner, Brook S. 1976. Determining the Impact of Federal Antidiscrimination Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks: A Study of South Carolina. American Economic Review 79:138–77.Google Scholar
Hicks, Alexander M. 1994. Introduction to Pooling. The Comparative Political Economy of the Welfare State, eds. Janoski, T. and Hicks, A. M. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Holzer, Harry J., and Neumark, David. 1998. What Does Affirmative Action Do? Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Google Scholar
Hsiao, Cheng. 1986. Analysis of Panel Data. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar
Kalev, Alexandra, Dobbin, Frank, and Kelly, Erin. 2006. Best Practices or Best Guesses? Assessing the Efficacy of Corporate Affirmative Action and Diversity Policies. American Sociological Review 71 (4):589–617.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, Arne L., Knoke, David, Marsden, Peter V., and Spaeth, Joe L. 1996. Organizations in America: Analyzing Their Structures and Human Resource Practices. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Google Scholar
Kalleberg, Arne L., and Mastekaasa, Arne. 2001. Satisfied Movers, Committed Stayers: The Impact of Job Mobility on Work Attitudes in Norway. Work and Occupations 28:183–209.Google Scholar
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss. 1977. Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books. Google Scholar
Kelly, Erin L. 2000. Corporate Family Policies in U.S. Organizations, 1965–1997. Ph.D diss. Department of Sociology, Princeton University.Google Scholar
Kelly, Erin L. 2003. The Strange History of Employer-Sponsored Childcare: Interested Actors, Uncertainty, and the Transformation of Law in Organizational Fields. American Journal of Sociology 109:606–49.Google Scholar
Kelly, Erin, and Dobbin, Frank. 2001. How Affirmative Action Became Diversity Management: Employer Response to Anti-Discrimination Law, 1961–1996. In Color Lines: Affirmative Action, Immigration and Civil Rights Options for America, ed. Skrentny, John David. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Konrad, Alison M., and Linnehan, Frank. 1995. Formalized HRM Structures—Coordinating Equal-Employment Opportunity or Concealing Organizational Practices. Academy of Management Journal 38:787–820.Google Scholar
Krawiec, D. Kimberly. 2003. Cosmetic Compliance and the Failure of Negotiated Governance. Washington University Law Quarterly 81:487–544.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1984a. Anti-Discrimination or Reverse Discrimination: The Impact of Changing Demographics, Title VII and Affirmative Action on Productivity. Journal of Human Resources 19:145–74.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1984b. The Impact of Affirmative Action on Employment. Journal of Labor Economics 2:439–63.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1984c. Employment and Occupational Advance under Affirmative Action. Review of Economics and Statistics 66:377–85.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1985a. Unions and the Employment of Blacks, Hispanics and Women. Industrial and Labor Relations Review 39:115–32.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1985b. What Promises Are Worth: The Impact of Affirmative Action Goals. Journal of Human Resources 20:3–20.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1989. Women and Affirmative Action. Journal of Economic Perspectives 3:61–75.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1990. The Impact of Affirmative Action Regulation and Equal Employment Opportunity Law on Black Employment. Journal of Economic Perspectives 4:47–63.Google Scholar
Leonard, Jonathan. 1996. Wage Disparities and Affirmative Action in the Late 1980's. American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings 86:285–89.Google Scholar
Lubenow, William C. 1971. The Politics of Government Growth: Early Victorian Attitudes toward State Intervention, 1833–1848. Hamden, CT: Archon Books. Google Scholar
MacDonagh, Oliver. 1958. The Nineteenth-Century Revolution in Government: A Reappraisal. Historical Journal 1:52–67.Google Scholar
Maddala, G.S. 1977. Econometrics. New York: McGraw Hill. Google Scholar
May, Peter J. 2005. Regulation and Compliance Motivations: Examining Different Approaches. Public Administration Review 65:31–44.Google Scholar
McCraw, Thomas K. 1975. Regulation in America: A Review Article. Business History Review 49:159–83.Google Scholar
Milkman, Ruth. 1985. Women Workers, Feminism, and the Labor Movement since the 1960s. In Women, Work, and Protest: A Century of Women's Labor History, ed. Milkman, Ruth. Boston and London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Mitnick, Barry M. 1978. Deregulation as a Process of Organizational Reduction. Public Administration Review 38:350–57.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Laura Beth, and Nelson, Robert L. 2005. Rights Realized? An Empirical Analysis of Employment Discrimination Litigation as a Claiming System. Wisconsin Law Review 663–711.Google Scholar
Osterman, Paul. 1994. How Common Is Workplace Transformation and Who Adopts It? Industrial and Labor Relations Review 47:173–88.Google Scholar
Osterman, Paul. 1995. Skill Training and Work Organization in American Establishments. Industrial Relations 34:125–46.Google Scholar
Osterman, Paul. 2000. Work Reorganization in an Era of Restructuring: Trends in Diffusion and Effects on Employee Welfare. Industrial & Labor Relations Review 53:179–96.Google Scholar
Petersen, Trond. 1985. A Comment on Presenting Results from Logit and Probit Models. American Sociological Review 50:130–31.Google Scholar
Reskin, Barbara. 1998. The Realities of Affirmative Action. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association. Google Scholar
Reskin, Barbara. 2000. The Proximate Causes of Employment Discrimination. Contemporary Sociology—A Journal of Reviews 29:319–28.Google Scholar
Reskin, Barbara, and McBrier, Debra B. 2000. Why Not Ascription? Organizations’ Employment of Male and Female Managers. American Sociological Review 65:210–33.Google Scholar
Reskin, Barbara, and Roos, Patricia. 1990. Job Queues, Gender Queues: Explaining Women's Inroads into Male Occupations. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Google Scholar
Robinson, Corre, Taylor, Tiffany, Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald, Zimmer, Catherine, and Irvine, Matthew W. Jr. 2005. Studying Race/Ethnic and Sex Segregation at the Establishment-Level: Methodological Issues and Substantive Opportunities Using Eeo-1 Reports. Work and Occupations 32:5–38.Google Scholar
Rodgers, William M. III, and Spriggs, William E. 1996. The Effect of Federal Contractor Status on Racial Differences in Establishment-Level Employment Shares: 1979–1992. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 86:290–93.Google Scholar
Sayrs, Lois W. 1989. Pooled Time Series Analysis. Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications. Google Scholar
Shaeffer, Ruth G. 1973. Nondiscrimination in Employment: Changing Perspectives, 1963–1972. New York: The Conference Board. Google Scholar
Shenhav, Yehouda A., and Haberfeld, Yitchak. 1992. Organizational Demography and Inequality. Social Forces 71:123–43.Google Scholar
Skaggs, Sheryl L. 2001. Discrimination Litigation: Implications for Women and Minorities in Supermarket Management. Ph.D. diss. Department of Sociology, North Carolina State University.Google Scholar
Skrentny, John David. 1996. The Ironies of Affirmative Action: Politics, Culture, and Justice in America. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Google Scholar
Smith, James P., and Welch, Finis. 1984. Affirmative Action and the Labor Markets. Journal of Labor Economics 2:269–301.Google Scholar
Snyder, Lori D. 2003. Are Management-Based Regulations Effective? Evidence from State Pollution Prevention Programs. Regulatory Policy Program Working Paper RPP-2003-21. Cambridge, MA: Center for Business and Government, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.Google Scholar
Sturm, Susan. 2001. Second Generation Employment Discrimination: A Structural Approach. Columbia Law Review 101:458–68.Google Scholar
Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald. 1993. Gender and Racial Inequality at Work: The Sources and Consequences of Job Segregation. Ithaca, NY: Industrial and Labor Relations Press. Google Scholar
Tomaskovic-Devey, Donald, and Skaggs, Sheryl. 1999. Degendered Jobs? Organizational Processes and Gender Segregated Employment. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 17:139–72.Google Scholar
U.S. Department of Labor. 1992. How Workers Get Their Training: A 1991 Update. Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Google Scholar
Viscusi, W. Kip. 1983. Risk by Choice: Regulating Health and Safety in the Workplace. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar
Viscusi, W. Kip, and Zeckhauser, Richard. 1979. Optimal Standards with Incomplete Enforcement. Public Policy 27:437–56.Google Scholar
Western, Bruce. 2002. The Impact of Incarceration on Wage Mobility and Inequality. American Sociological Review 67:477–98.Google Scholar
Williams, Joan. 2000. Unbending Gender: Why Family Work Conflict and What to Do About It? New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar
Wooten, Lynn Perry, and James, Erika Hayes. 2004. When Firms Fail to Learn: The Perpetuation of Discrimination in the Workplace. Management Inquiry 13:23–33.Google Scholar
Yakura, Elaine K. 1995. EEO Law and Managing Diversity. In Managing Diversity: Human Resource Strategies for Transforming the Workplace, eds. Kossek, Ellen Ernst and Lobel, Sharon A. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Google Scholar
Zellner, Alfred. 1962. An Efficient Method of Estimating Seemingly Unrelated Regressions and Tests for Aggregation Bias. Journal of the American Statistical Association 57:348–68.Google Scholar