Introduction

Equal employment opportunity (EEO) began when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802 in 1941. Executive Order 8802 ensured that every American citizen was guaranteed equal employment opportunities in World War II defense contracts, regardless of race, creed, color, or national origin. Today, the EEO legislation has affected businesses. The topics discussed will be, how the organization, as well as the individual employee, has rights, the effect it has on the customers, how it can improve an organization’s public relations, how it can diversify the workforce, and the effect it has on Human Resources Management of an organization.

Organization and Employee Rights
A. Equal Pay Act of 1963 “To
““Affirmative action” means positive steps taken to increase the representation of women and minorities in areas of employment, education, and business from which they have been historically excluded. When those steps involve preferential selection—on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity—affirmative action generates intense controversy” (1). The establishment of affirmative action causes a huge controversy. Yes, affirmative action helps out minorities and women because it allows them to get better opportunities without being discriminated against. The problem that arose from affirmative action was reverse discrimination. Reverse discrimination is “the act of giving preference to members of protected classes to the extent that unprotected individuals believe they are suffering discrimination” (Bohlander and Snell 126). For example, in University of California Regents v Bakke (1978), the Supreme Court of the United States settled a reverse discrimination case, which land marked affirmative action. Allan Bakke, a white male, applied to the university, but was denied admission twice. He stated that he had better scores than some of the people that were admitted because they were minorities. The Court ruled in favor of Bakke. Race can be a factor in an applicant’s evaluation as long as the other factors are considered and there was not a quota system for individuals in different protected classes. Diversity can be a good thing. Having a