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 The Casselman River Bridge, built in 1813 on the National Road near Grantsville, Md., has been preserved as a historic site.

When the 1964 Civil Eights Act was passed, it prohibited discrimination on the grounds of race, color, creed or national origin under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance. (In 1973 the Highway Act added, for the first time, prohibition of sex discrimination.) The 1964 Civil Rights Act and Executive Order 11246, promulgated in 1965, led to the eventual establishment of a formal civil rights and equal employment opportunity (EEO) program within FHWA. The development of this program was slowed by the fragmentation of internal and external concerns. In the beginning, the internal concerns were assigned to the Office of Administration and the external concerns to the Office of Audits and Investigations.

Two important factors contributed to the advancement of the agency’s civil rights and equal opportunity program. Congress enacted, as part of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1968, the requirement that States submit assurances that employment and training in connection with proposed Federal-aid projects would be provided without regard to race, creed, or national origin. This legislation was followed in January 1969 by civil rights and equal opportunity hearings held by the Subcommittee on Roads of the Public Works Committee of the Senate. As a result of these hearings, the Senate Subcommittee made several recommendations. Foremost among these recommendations was that the Federal Highway Administration should assume leadership in showing to all levels of the agency and the States the importance attached to equal employment opportunity efforts.

In response, FHWA took three important steps. First, the Administrator appointed a Special Assistant for Equal Opportunity in March 1969. Second, he created the Office of Civil Rights in June with responsibility for both internal and external concerns. Third, he elevated the former Special Assistant to Director of the new Office of Civil Rights.

The newly established Office began monitoring FHWA’s own internal employment practices and established and maintained minority group statistics. The initial operations of the Office were strengthened by the issuance of Executive Order 11478 in 1971 which served as the basis for the development of affirmative action plans and procedures for processing discrimination complaints and EEO counseling activities. This led to the formation in 1972 of an Internal Division with a system for self-evaluation. 222