Two days before the vote, Smith offered an amendment to insert "sex" after the word "religion" as a protected class of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The "Congressional Record" shows Smith made serious arguments, voicing concerns that white women would suffer greater discrimination without a protection for gender. Liberals, who knew Smith was hostile to civil rights for blacks, assumed that he was doing so to defeat the whole bill. In 1968, Leo Kanowitz wrote that, within the context of the anti-civil rights coalition making "every effort to block" the passage of Title VII, "it is abundantly clear that a principal motive in introducing ["sex"] was to prevent passage of the basic legislation being considered by Congress, rather than solicitude for women's employment rights." Kanowitz notes that Representative Edith Green, who was one of the few female legislators in the House at that time, held that view that legislation against sex discrimination in employment "would not have received one hundred votes," indicating that it would have been defeated handedly.