What is difference between affirmative action employer and equal opportunity employer?

Answer 1

H

equal opportunity is the CONCEPT of prohibiting race and sex from being factors in decisions.

equal EMployment Opportunity is the concept of eliminating race and sex from hiring, assignment and pay decisions in employers larger than 15 workers.

Answer 2

About 25% of US employers are subject to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act; they are EEO employers, bound to give race and sex no weight, ever.

Only a tiny fraction of employers have AA responsibilities: those with federally funded contracts larger than $50,000 and 50 or more employees.

No AA employer can violate Title VII by giving any weight to race or sex in selection.

AA provisions in fed funded contracts require three things:

full compliance with Title VII, giving zero weight to race or sex,

numerical analysis of the race and sex composition of its workforce and reporting the numbers to OFCCP, and

if any job family has a race or sex composition substantially different from the relevant recruiting market, the employer takes temporary efforts to eliminate THAT "shortfall" then stops those efforts when "parity" with the recruiting market is reached.