basic intent of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was an attempt to end discrimination by requiring employers to seek qualified minorities when hiring. Broadly defined, affirmative action refers to efforts to increase educational and employment opportunities for minorities (p.6).
             In March 1961, President Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925 establishing the Committee on Equal Opportunity. Its purpose was to end racial discrimination by the government and its contractors. Cahn (2002) defines the order as a prerequisite for all contractors to pledge they would not discriminate against any employee or applicant based upon race, color, creed, or national origin. They would take affirmative action to ensure that applicants were employed and employees were treated fairly without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin. This meant that appropriate measures had to be taken to in order to eliminate discrimination (p.xi). Two years later Kennedy proposed the legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
             When he introduced the legislation that became the Civil Rights Act of 1964, President Kennedy needed the support of the American citizens. During a national television address he asked, "If an American because of his skin is dark cannot eat in a restaurant, cannot send his children to the best public school available, cannot vote for the elected officials who represent him, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?"
             The introduction of the Civil Rights Bill in Congress met with stiff resistance and was in danger of being voted down. Mills (1994) states that there had to be a clear interpretation of the bill if it was to pass in Congress. Senate sponsors of the bill had to promise that the bill would not legalize preferences in order to get it passed over a filibuster that lasted eighty two working days (p.6).
             Title VII prohibits an employer...