impact of formally neutral measures, and enables employers to voluntarily take affirmative action favoring under-represented people in their workforce. The law has not, however, succeeded in eliminating the disparities in income by race, health, age or socio-economic background. Constitutional rights The right to equality in employment in the United States comes from at least six major statutes, and limited jurisprudence of the US Supreme Court, leaving the law inconsistent and full of exceptions. Originally, the US Constitution entrenched gender, race and wealth inequality by enabling states to maintain slavery, reserve the vote to white, property owning men, and enabling employers to refuse employment to anyone. After the Emancipation Proclamation in the American Civil War, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments attempted to enshrined equal civil rights for everyone, while the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and 1875 spelled out that everyone had the right to make contracts, hold property and access accommodation, transport and entertainment without discrimination. However, in 1883 the US Supreme Court in the Civil Rights Cases put an end to development by declaring that Congress was not allowed to regulate the actions of private individuals rather than public bodies. In his dissent, Harlan J would have held that no "corporation or individual wielding power under state authority for the public benefit" was entitled to "discriminate against freemen or citizens, in their civil rights". By 1944, the position had changed. In Steele v Louisville & Nashville Railway Co, a Supreme Court majority held a labor union had a duty of fair representation and may not discriminate against members based on race under the Railway Labor Act of 1926 (or the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. Murphy J would have also based the duty on a right to equality in the Fifth Amendment). Subsequently, Johnson v Railway Express Agency admitted that the old Enforcement Act of 1870 provided a remedy against private parties. However, the Courts have not yet accepted a general right of equality, regardless of public or private power. Legislation will usually be found unconstitutional, under the Fifth or Fourteenth Amendment if discrimination is shown to be intentional, or if it irrationally discriminates against one group. For example, in Cleveland Board of Education v LaFleur the Supreme Court held by a majority of 5 to 2, that a school's requirement for women teachers to take mandatory maternity leave was unconstitutional, against the Due Process Clause, because