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Making Rights Work: Legal Mobilization at the Agency Level

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Jennifer Woodward
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Abstract

This article discusses how McCann's theory on legal mobilization and social change is generalizable to the legal decisions of agencies. I demonstrate how the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) routinely delayed and denied Title VII employment rights on the basis of sex and how this resulted in the formation of the National Organization for Women (NOW) to ensure that the sex provision of Title VII was enforced. The article also discusses the influence of NOW in shaping the first years of Title VII law and the organization's role in reversing EEOC decisions denying rights under the sex provision of the law.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 691 - 723
Copyright
© 2015 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank the American Bar Foundation and Law and Society Association for their financial support as a Law and Society Doctoral Fellow during the research and early writing stages of project. This article benefited from insightful comments provided by the anonymous reviewers and editorial board at Law and Society Review. The article also incorporates comments generously provided on preliminary versions of this work by Julie Novkov, Patricia Strach, Alethia Jones, George Lovell, Robert L. Nelson, Laura Beth Nielsen, Sandy Schram, and a panel at the 2013 Law and Society Annual Meeting.

References

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Statutes Cited

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Case Cited

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