Executive Order 11375, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on October 13, 1967, banned discrimination on the basis of sex in hiring and employment in both the United States federal workforce and on the part of government contractors.

Jr., chairman of the Civil Service Commission, noted that women generated about a third of the complaints his agency received about unfair employment practices, although they represented a modest proportion of the federal workforce.

As of one year after its issuance, it authorized the Bureau of Labor to investigate and address similar complaints from those employed by government contractors.

[4] When the Labor Department issued details rules as provided for in this Executive Order on June 9, 1970, it defined contractors as any business enterprise with a government contract valued at $50,000 or more and 50 or more employees.

Labor designated the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare as the compliance agency for institutions of higher learning.

After HEW gathered statistics and discovered disparities in men's and women's wages and patterns of promotion in higher education, it established a special division devoted to investigating complaints against colleges and universities, the Office of Civil Rights[4][9] and was assigning field staff as early as July 1968.

Though OFCC regulations required the creation of "goals and timetables" for affirmative actions to remedy past discriminatory employment practices, government officials hesitated to apply them to sex as they did to race.

[13] This Executive Order provided the basis for the federal government's investigation of the hiring practices than 2,000 colleges and universities, following complaints in the spring of 1970 against 150 institutions by the WEAL and NOW.

Dr. Bernice Sandler of the Equity Action League commented: "After all, there are no Federal laws dealing with sex discrimination.

A eureka-like alarm went off in my head and within months we filed charges against the University of Maryland.By the late 1970s, the Carter administration was using the rules established under Executive Order 11375 against large businesses like Uniroyal, which had sex-segregated manufacturing facilities.