The principal issue raised by this appeal is whether 42 U.S.C. § 1981, derived primarily from the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27, 1 encompasses claims of sex discrimination. The clear answer is that it does not.
Alice Bobo, a black woman, brought this action against her former employer ITT, Continental Baking Company (ITT). She alleged that ITT discharged her because she had refused to wear a hat that co-employees allegedly were not required to wear. She also averred that prior to her firing, she had been the victim of other discriminatory employment conditions because of her race and sex. Bobo sought relief under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Upon motion by ITT, partial summary judgment was entered against Bobo by the district court. The court ruled that Bobo’s Title VII claim was barred because of her failure to sue within 90 days of receipt of her right to sue letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f). The court also held that since § 1981 did not reach claims of sex discrimination, Bobo was entitled to a trial only on the issue of whether she had been subjected to racial discrimination.
At trial the court, sitting without a jury, heard accounts of Bobo’s tumultuous employment history with ITT. Bobo was originally hired as a bread sales representative, requiring that she drive a company truck to retail outlets to sell and stock ITT’s baked goods. While serving in this capacity, she was reprimanded by her superiors for unauthorized absence from work and for failure to remove stale products from store shelves. She also was compelled to reimburse ITT for shortages in the proceeds she collected from bread sales. After ninety days as a sales representative, Bobo requested a transfer to a job inside ITT’s plant. She testified that her request was prompted by racially discriminatory remarks made by supervisory personnel. The district court chose not to credit this testimony, since it contradicted a deposition she had given three years earlier disclaiming the notion that her supervisors’ attitudes toward her were influenced by a racial animus. Although Bobo also claimed that fellow em *342 ployees harassed her with pranks, the court found that ITT had neither known of nor condoned such employee conduct. The court also observed that the evidence suggested that even Bobo believed the pranks were directed at her sex, not her race.
Bobo’s request was honored and she was transferred to a position as a sanitation worker inside ITT’s plant. Here she was reprimanded for tardiness, interference with a fellow employee’s work, and use of a work area during break time. Ultimately, when she refused to wear a hard-shelled safety hat to protect her from objects that might fall from overhead conveyor belts, she was discharged for insubordination. Although she contended that other employees were not compelled to wear the safety hats, she admitted that some of these employees were black. The court in addition found that only employees who worked in areas with a risk of falling objects were forced to wear safety hats. The court found that ITT’s policy was to dismiss insubordinate employees and that this policy was evenly applied. Concluding that Bobo’s unacceptable behavior, not ITT’s racial discrimination led to her dismissal, the court entered judgment for ITT.
On appeal, Bobo attacks the district court’s findings of fact as well as its determination that sex discrimination is not cognizable under § 1981. 2
Sex Discrimination Under § 1981
Section 1981 generally forbids racial discrimination in the making and enforcement of private contracts, including private employment contracts, whether the aggrieved party is black or white.
Runyon v. McCrary,
Although § 1981 strikes at many forms of racial discrimination, no court has held that allegations of gender based discrimination fall within its purview. Courts at every level of the federal judiciary have considered the question and reached the opposite result. The Supreme Court, in framing the question for decision in
Runyon,
explained that the case did not involve “the right of a private school to limit its student body to boys, to girls, or to adherents of a particular religious faith, since 42 U.S.C. § 1981 is in no way addressed to such categories of selectivity.”
Id.
The Court’s view of the 1866 Act’s purpose was expressed in
Georgia v. Rachel,
Bobo nevertheless argues that the term “white citizens” should be deemed synonymous with “most favored group,” thereby permitting those who find themselves somehow less favored to advance discrimination charges under § 1981. A sweeping interpretation of this sort, however, would thwart the statute’s evident meaning and purpose. As the Supreme Court has explained, Congress enacted § 1 of the 1866 Act with the ambitious goal of ensuring equal citizenship for the newly freed slaves. Statements in the legislative history, carefully reviewed in McDonald, reflect this objective and confirm that the “white citizens” language was added specifically to preclude a construction that might expand the statute’s coverage to other groups. Representative Wilson, who proposed amending the original bill to add the “white citizens” language, stated that “the reason for offering [the amendment] was this: it was thought by some persons that unless these qualifying words were incorporated in the bill, those rights might be extended to all citizens, whether male or female, majors or minors.” Cong. Globe, 39th Congress., 1st Sess., App. 157. (1866). A supporter of the bill, Representative Shallabarger, expressed the sentiments of his colleagues when he remarked that “[i]ts whole effect is to require that whatever rights . . . the States may confer upon one race or color of the citizens shall be held by all races in equality. Your State may deprive women of the right to sue or contract or testify, and children from doing the same. But if you do so, or do not so as to one race, you shall treat the other likewise .... ” Id. at 1293.
Bobo further contends that since women obviously lacked equal legal rights during the Reconstruction era, “white citizens” should be read as “white men.” But as the legislative history quoted above indicates, Congress meant precisely what it said. The drafters of § 1981 had no intention to disturb public or private authority to discriminate against women. 5 Outlawing such discrimination in the United States in 1866 would have signaled an extraordinary social transformation, a result clearly not desired by Congress. Public sensitivity to the ills of gender discrimination is of more recent origin. See, e. g., Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.; Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq.; Equal Pay *344 Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. § 206(d). We cannot ascribe contemporary attitudes to a Congress acting over a century ago when its views to the contrary are so plainly stated.
The question before us has been frequently considered by courts, but never resolved in the manner sought by Bobo herein. A panel of this court in
Willingham
v.
Macon Telegraph Publishing Co.,
Bobo cites
Guerra v. Manchester Terminal Corp.,
*345 In the face of seemingly unambiguous statutory language, emphatic contemporaneous statements by legislators and an unbroken tide of case law rejecting Bobo’s arguments, we conclude that the district court properly held that sex discrimination is not cognizable under § 1981. 8
Bobo’s Other Claims
In her pro se brief, Bobo generally asserts error in the district court’s findings of fact. As outlined above, the court found neither disparate racial impact nor discriminatory purpose in ITT’s actions. The court further found that ITT terminated Bobo because of her repeated failure to abide by company rules. With ample support in the record, these findings readily pass muster as not clearly erroneous.
Grigsby v. North Mississippi Medical Center, Inc.,
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Title 42 U.S.C. § 1981 provides:
"All persons within the jurisdiction of.the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.”
This section was adapted chiefly from § 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 14 Stat. 27. Similar language is found in § 16 of the Enforcement Act of 1870, 16 Stat. 144. Section 18 of the 1870 Act also reenacted the 1866 Act. The present version is the product of the 1874 codification of federal statutory law. Runyon v. McCrary,427 U.S. 160 , 168 n. 8,96 S.Ct. 2586 , 2593 n. 8,49 L.Ed.2d 415 (1976).
. Bobo filed a pro se brief assailing the district court’s findings of fact. Appointed counsel filed a supplemental brief on the § 1981 issue. The dismissal of Bobo’s Title VII action was not appealed.
. The 1866 Act’s removal provisions are now codified at 28 U.S.C. § 1443.
. Section 1982 proscribes discrimination with respect to real or personal property interests.
See City of Memphis v. Greene,
. In
Frontiero v. Richardson,
[TJhroughout much of the 19th century the position of women in our society was, in many respects, comparable to that of blacks under the pre-Civil War slave codes. Neither slaves nor women could hold office, serve on juries, or bring suit in their own names, and married women traditionally were denied the legal capacity to hold or convey property or to serve as legal guardians of their own children.
.
Paskuly v. Marshall Field & Co.,
.
Accord, e. g., Des Vergnes v. Seekonk Water Dist.,
. Since we reject Bobo’s argument, we do not consider her further contention that the 13th amendment authorizes § 1981’s application to private sex discrimination.