Racial Discrimination
Executive Order 8802 (also known as the Fair Employment Act) was signed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on June 25, 1941 to prohibit racial discrimination in the national defense industry. It was the first federal law to prohibit employment discrimination in the United States.Though the executive order stated that "the democratic way of life within the Nation can be defended successfully only with the help and support of all groups within its borders," it was also issued in response to pressure from civil rights activists Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and A. J. Muste who had planned a march on Washington, DC to protest racial discrimination. The march was cancelled after Executive Order 8802 was issued.
The order required all federal agencies and departments involved with defense production to ensure that vocational and training programs were administered without discrimination as to "race, creed, color, or national origin." All defense contracts were to include provisions that barred private contractors from discrimination as well.
The Committee on Fair Employment Practice was established by Executive Order 8802 within the Office of Production Management to investigate alleged violations and "to take appropriate steps to redress grievances which it finds to be valid." The Committee was also supposed to make recommendations to federal agencies and to the president on how Executive Order 8802 could be made the most effective.
Executive Order 8802 was superseded by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited racial discrimination in private employment generally, and by Executive Order 11246 in 1965, which specifically addressed federal contractors and subcontractors.
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