equal opportunity

Absence of discrimination, as in the workplace, based on race, color, age, gender, national origin, religion, or mental or physical disability: “The issue of equal opportunity . . . posed particular problems” (Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.).

Equal access to the procedure under which some office or benefit not available to all is allocated, with stipulations about the fairness of the procedure in view of its purposes. For example, nineteenth-century reforms of the civil service in the United Kingdom introduced the allocation of positions by competitive examination, to replace patronage or family connection as determinants of success. In this conception, equal opportunity is necessarily associated with rationing. ‘Equal opportunity’ is, however, sometimes misused to support an increase in the supply of some good, for example in the claim that equal opportunity requires that higher education be made available to all who want it. This is better characterized as a demand for equality in distribution.

‘Equal opportunity’ is an elastic notion because of the problems of deciding at what point in a process it is appropriate to measure it. For example, a competitive examination may provide equal opportunity for candidates to be tested, but that does not mean they have had an equal opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills required for success, and hence may not be a true guide to talent. The ‘equal access’ mentioned may then be applied to the circumstances in which individuals receive their education, it being argued that equal opportunity in the test requires equal opportunity to acquire the skills to be tested. This may lead to a demand for equal conditions in the period before the rationing, or a demand that, because those conditions have not in fact been equal, the procedure take account of the previous relative lack of resources or opportunities of some competitors by discriminating in their favour. See also affirmative action; positive discrimination.

— Andrew Reeve

Employment practices which do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Such discrimination is outlawed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 42 U.S.C. §2000e-2.

Title VII created the equal employment opportunity commission [eeoc] to implement an equal opportunity policy by working with local agencies, paying the expenses of witnesses before the Commission, affording persons subject to Title VII technical assistance to further compliance, helping to conciliate employers and labor organizations with employees or members refusing to cooperate, making technical studies, and intervening in civil actions on the part of an aggrieved party. The Commission is composed of five members, appointed by the President and approved by the Senate. They serve for five-year terms. No more than three of the five may belong to the same political party. 42 U.S.C. §2000e-4.

The goal of giving all persons an equal chance to an education and employment, and to protect their civil rights, regardless of their race, religious beliefs, or gender. In the United States, various minority groups have been fighting for equal opportunity over the last 150 years. (See affirmative action, civil rights movement, equal protection of the laws, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Organization for Women, segregation, sexism, suffragist, and women's movement.)

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