Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO), Affirmative Action (AA) and Embracing Diversity are three important workplace policies that aim to reduce discrimination in a workplace and create equity in the workplace. Equity in the workplace is mainly characterized by: a diverse productive workforce, an inclusive environment that values all employees, a more equitable and accessible work environment, a level playing field for employee success, and most importantly, a work environment free from discrimination. The US federal government instituted these programs to encourage the idea of diversity in corporate hiring and promotion. Although there is overlap between EEO, AA and diversity, these programs differ in their goals, administration methods and requirements.…show more content… It means freedom from discrimination on different grounds. EEO rights are guaranteed by the federal and state laws of fair employment and are enforced by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as well as its state counterparts. There are some legislations that foster or protect it from eroding and they mainly include the U.S. EEOC, which was established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in order to assist in the protection of US employees from discrimination. This law was the first federal law issued to protect most US employees from employment discrimination based upon race, color, creed, religion, sex, or national origin (Public Law 88-352, July 2, 1964, 78 Stat. 253, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e et. seq.). Employment discrimination is common in many areas such as firing, hiring, transfer, promotions, and wage practices as it is also considered illegal to discriminate in advertising, classification or referral of job applicants (Levine & Montcalmo,…show more content… Regarding the affirmative action plans, they are implemented to increase the participation of women and minorities in the workplace. In accordance with the federal regulations, affirmative actions must involve an equal opportunity policy statement, an analysis of current work force, identification of areas of problem, the establishment of timetables and goals for increasing the employment opportunities, specific action-oriented programs that address areas of problem, the establishment of internal audit and reporting system, and support for community action