25 | September | 2023 | Be a Seed for Change

President Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Over the past 58 years, OFCCP has helped define and defend equal employment opportunity in the American workplace.

The origins of the agency can be traced back to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941.

Executive Order 8802 was issued to prohibit federal contractors within the defense industry from discriminating on the basis of race or ethnicity.

On September 24, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson greatly expanded the federal government’s enforcement of equal employment opportunity by issuing Executive Order 11246, and soon thereafter, the Secretary of Labor established the Office of Federal Contract Compliance. Executive Order 11246, enforced by OFCCP, became a key landmark in a series of federal actions aimed at eradicating discrimination.

President Lyndon Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, granting supervision of federal contract compliance to the Secretary of Labor, and creating the department’s first Office of Federal Contract Compliance. The EO ordered federal departments and agencies to impose non–non-discrimination and affirmative action rules in all federal contracts and federally–assisted construction projects. Later, on October 5, 1978, President Jimmy Carter consolidated all affirmative action enforcement actions into DOL by signing into law Executive Order 12086.

History of Executive Order 11246

Learn more about the history of OFCCP and stay informed about planned celebratory activities across the country in honor of this significant milestone.

In a June 1965 commencement address at Washington, DC’s Howard University, President Lyndon Johnson shared his strong belief in civil rights and nondiscriminatory practices when he said: “Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates. This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”

Judiciary Act of 1789

The Judiciary Act of 1789, officially titled “An Act to Establish the Judicial Courts of the United States,” was signed into law by President George Washington on September 24, 1789. Article III of the Constitution established a Supreme Court, but left to Congress the authority to create lower federal courts as needed. Principally authored by Senator Oliver Ellsworth of Connecticut, the Judiciary Act of 1789 established the structure and jurisdiction of the federal court system and created the position of attorney general. Although amended throughout the years by Congress, the basic outline of the federal court system established by the First Congress remains largely intact today.

- Larger images available only at The Library of Congress
Oliver Ellsworth, 1745-1807.
1 print: etching [no date recorded]
Prints & Photographs Division.
Reproduction Number:
LC-USZ62-54670