The Age Discrimination in Employment Act at Thirty: Where It's Been, Where It Is Today, Where It's Going

Thirty-three years ago, in the course of debating the legislation that eventually was enacted into law as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Congress began-albeit very tentatively-to address age discrimination in the workplace. While it rejected attempts to amend the 1964 bill to include age within the then-pending menu of proscribed bases for workplace decision-making, i.e., race, color, national origin, religion, and sex, Congress did direct the Secretary of Labor to undertake a study to ascertain the nature and extent of age bias in employment and to make recommendations for dealing with this discrimination, if it in fact existed.