The California Fair Employment Practices Act (FEPA) was a statute passed and enacted in 1959 that barred businesses and labor unions from discriminating against employees or job applicants based on their color, national origin, ancestry, religion, or race.
[3] The FEPA as well as similar legislation passed earlier in other states (notably New York and New Jersey) drew its inspiration from the Fair Employment Practices Commission (FEPC) set up by the federal government during World War II.
[3] From that point onward, supporters of a statewide fair employment practices commission focused their efforts on getting a bill passed in the California State Legislature.
Nevertheless, the bills introduced by assemblymen Augustus F. Hawkins and Byron Rumford failed to gain traction until the emergence of the California Committee for Fair Employment Practices in 1954.
[4] In a press release summarizing some of the statute's main provisions, Hawkins wrote that the FEPA "creates as a new division in the Department of Industrial Relations a State Fair Employment Practices Commission of five members.