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The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is a federal agency that was established via the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 () is a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requi ...
to administer and enforce civil rights laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex (including sexual orientation, pregnancy, and gender identity), age, disability, genetic information, and retaliation for participating in a discrimination complaint proceeding and/or opposing a discriminatory practice. The commission also mediates and settles thousands of discrimination complaints each year prior to their investigation. The EEOC is also empowered to file civil discrimination suits against employers on behalf of alleged victims and to adjudicate claims of discrimination brought against federal agencies. Since 2021, the chair of the EEOC is Charlotte Burrows.


Process and enforcement


Authority

The EEOC has the authority to investigate and prosecute cases against most organizations, including labor unions and employment agencies, employing 15 workers or more, or, in the case of age discrimination, 20 or more workers. The commissioner of the EEOC can issue charges without a complainant, referred to as a "commissioner's charge." Discrimination complaints can be based on hiring, firing, promotions, harassment, training, wages, and/or benefits, and responsibility covers: * Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 * Sections 102 and 103 of the
Civil Rights Act of 1991 The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States labor law, passed in response to United States Supreme Court decisions that limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination. The Act represented the first effort since ...
*
Pregnancy Discrimination Act The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) of 1978 () is a United States federal statute. It amended Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to "prohibit sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy." The Act covers discrimination "on the basis of ...
* Equal Pay Act of 1963 * Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 * Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 *
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA; to ) is a United States labor law that forbids employment discrimination against anyone, at least 40 years of age, in the United States (see ). In 1967, the bill was signed into law by Pr ...
* Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act


Process

The EEOC investigation is
confidential Confidentiality involves a set of rules or a promise usually executed through confidentiality agreements that limits the access or places restrictions on certain types of information. Legal confidentiality By law, lawyers are often required ...
until the charge is filed, when the EEOC has 10 days to notify the employer of the charge. Charges may be filed on behalf of someone else to maintain some anonymity, for example, a parent may file a charge on behalf of a minor child.


Alternative dispute resolution

Because all federal agencies are required to offer an
alternative dispute resolution Alternative dispute resolution (ADR), or external dispute resolution (EDR), typically denotes a wide range of dispute resolution processes and techniques that parties can use to settle disputes with the help of a third party. They are used for ...
, the EEOC offers
mediation Mediation is a structured, interactive process where an impartial third party neutral assists disputing parties in resolving conflict through the use of specialized communication and negotiation techniques. All participants in mediation are ...
with external or internal professional mediators as a voluntary alternative to
litigation - A lawsuit is a proceeding by a party or parties against another in the civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used in reference to a civil act ...
, which typically results in faster resolutions. In the 2020
fiscal year A fiscal year (or financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. Laws in many ...
(FY), the EEOC reported more than 6,000 mediations conducted recovering nearly half of the $333.2 million in relief from mediation,
conciliation Conciliation is an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) process whereby the parties to a dispute use a conciliator, who meets with the parties both separately and together in an attempt to resolve their differences. They do this by lowering te ...
, and
settlement Settlement may refer to: * Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building *Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction *Settlement (fin ...
. Mediation is offered, or can be requested, prior to investigation, or after a finding of discrimination has been issued, during conciliation. If the EEOC does not find merit in the charge, they will not offer, nor allow for a request, for mediation. The average mediation with the EEOC takes 3 months.


Respondent's position statement and investigation

Employers have 30 days from receipt of a charge to respond to allegations prior to any investigation or mediation offering, or if voluntary mediation was utilized, but unsuccessful. Charging parties have 20 days to respond to the respondent's position statement. The EEOC may ask the employer for additional information such as witness interviews, an on-site interview, or personnel files and policies. An investigator will determine whether or not there is reasonable cause to determine whether or not discrimination has occurred. In FY 2020, the EEOC found 17.4% of charged cases to have merit. The EEOC says investigations typically take 10 months or longer.


Right to Sue

A Right to Sue gives claimants the right to file a lawsuit in federal court. Right to Sue notices are granted when the agency does not pursue litigation, because the claimant requests the notice after 180 days have elapsed into an investigation; the EEOC finds merit following an investigation, but declines to prosecute; or the agency is unable to determine if there is reasonable cause that the law may have been violated. Charges filed under the Equal Pay Act or Age Discrimination in Employment Act do not require a Right to Sue. Age discrimination lawsuits may be filed 60 days after the charge has been filed with the EEOC, while lawsuits due to wage discrimination based on sex may be within two years from the last discriminatory paycheck.


Litigation

The Office of General Counsel, which is led by an appointee of the
President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
that has been confirmed by the
Senate A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...
for a four-year term, prosecutes EEOC cases in order to recover relief for complainants the agency has found to be victims of discrimination. The EEOC does not have the resources to file a lawsuit in every case where discrimination has been found and weighs the seriousness and potential impact on determining whether or not to litigate. In FY 2020, the EEOC recovered $106 million in relief through litigation of 93 meritorious lawsuits, 13 of which were systemic, accounting for $69.9 million of the relief. The EEOC defines systemic cases as "pattern or practice, policy and/or class cases where the discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company or geographic location," and all cases are investigated as potentially systemic.


Remedies

When a finding of discrimination is found by the EEOC, the goal of the agency is
injunctive relief An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or i ...
, both to put the victim in the position they would have been in had the discrimination not occurred, and to stop and prevent the discriminatory behavior. This could include back-pay, job reinstatement, attorney's fees, expert witness fees, court costs, other
compensatory damages At common law, damages are a remedy in the form of a monetary award to be paid to a claimant as compensation for loss or injury. To warrant the award, the claimant must show that a breach of duty has caused foreseeable loss. To be recognised at ...
, and punitive damages. Age and gender-based are not eligible for compensatory or punitive damages, but instead are limited to liquidated damages equal to the amount of back pay. Compensatory and punitive damages are limited per employee by the size of the employer: * For employers with 15-100 employees, the limit is $50,000. * For employers with 101-200 employees, the limit is $100,000. * For employers with 201-500 employees, the limit is $200,000. * For employers with more than 500 employees, the limit is $300,000.


Investigative compliance policy

EEOC applies an investigative compliance policy when respondents are uncooperative in providing information during an investigation of a charge. If a respondent fails to turn over requested information, field offices are to subpoena the information, file a direct suit on the merits of a charge, or use the legal principle of adverse inference, which assumes the withheld information is against the respondent.


History

On March 6, 1961, President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity, which then Vice President
Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...
was appointed to head. This was the forerunner of the EEOC. The EEOC was established on July 2, 1965. Management directive 715 is a regulatory guidance document from the commission to all federal agencies regarding adherence to equal opportunity employment laws and reporting requirements. The EEOC's first complainants were female flight attendants. However, the EEOC at first ignored sex discrimination complaints, and the prohibition against sex discrimination in employment went unenforced for the next few years. One EEOC director called the prohibition "a fluke... conceived out of wedlock." In 2005, the EEOC established the Systemic Task Force (STF) to evaluate how the agency combats systemic discrimination. In March 2006, the STF determined that the agency could not effectively address system discrimination without a nationwide system, but that the EEOC was uniquely prepared to fight systemic discrimination because the EEOC's broad authority, commissioner's charges, access to data, exemption from Rule 23 of the
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (officially abbreviated Fed. R. Civ. P.; colloquially FRCP) govern civil procedure in United States district courts. The FRCP are promulgated by the United States Supreme Court pursuant to the Rules Enablin ...
, focus on injunctive relief, and nationwide coverage. As a result, the commission created the role of Systemic Coordinator and Lead Systemic Investigator, and implemented programs that resulted in improved systemic expertise in the agency and all charges being investigated as potential systemic cases. In 2008, disability-based charges handled by the EEOC rose to a record 19,543, up 10.2 percent from the prior year and the highest level since 1995. That may again be showing that because the EEOC has not adjusted many of their initial 1991 fines for inflation, the backlog of EEOC cases illustrates erosion of deterrence. In 2011, the Commission included "sex-stereotyping" of lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals, as a form of sex discrimination illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In 2012, the Commission expanded protection provided by Title VII to transgender status and gender identity. In 2015, it concluded that for Title VII, sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation. The Supreme Court upheld this position in '' R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission'' in 2020. In 2012, the EEOC achieved a second consecutive year of a significant reduction in the charge inventory, something not seen since FY 2002. Due to a concerted effort, the EEOC reduced the pending inventory of private sector charges by 10 percent from FY 2011, bringing the inventory level to 70,312. This inventory reduction is the second consecutive decrease of almost ten percent in charge inventory. During FY 2020, the EEOC secured a record amount of recovery, more than $535 million, for victims of discrimination in the workplace. Also, the agency reduced the private sector charge inventory by nearly 4 percent to the lowest level in 14 years. Notably, the agency increased the percentage of charges resolved and those with an outcome favorable to the charging party increased by nearly two percent, to 17.4 percent.


Staffing, workload, and backlog

In 1975, when the backlog reached more than 100,000 charges to be investigated, President
Gerald Ford Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. ( ; born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was an American politician who served as the 38th president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was the only president never to have been elected ...
's full requested budget of $62 million was approved. A "Backlog Unit" was created in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
in 1978 to resolve the thousands of federal equal employment complaints inherited from the Civil Service Commission. In 1980, Eleanor Holmes Norton began re-characterizing the backlog cases as "workload" in her reports to Congress, thus fulfilling her promise to eliminate the backlog. In June 2006, civil rights and labor union advocates publicly complained that the effectiveness of the EEOC was being undermined by budget and staff cuts and the outsourcing of complaint screening to a private contractor whose workers were poorly trained. In 2006, a partial budget freeze prevented the agency from filling vacant jobs, and its staff had shrunk by nearly 20 percent from 2001. A Bush administration official stated that the cuts had been made because it was necessary to direct more money to defense and homeland security. By 2008, the EEOC had lost 25 percent of its staff over the previous eight years, including investigators and lawyers who handle the cases. The number of complaints to investigate grew to 95,400 in fiscal 2008, up 26 percent from 2006. The outsourcing to Pearson Government Solutions in Kansas cost the agency $4.9 million and was called a "huge waste of money" by the president of the EEOC employees' union in 2006.


Race and ethnicity

The EEOC requires employers to report various information about their employees, in particular their racial/ethnic categories, to prevent discrimination based on race/ethnicity. The definitions used in the report have been different at different times. In 1997, the
Office of Management and Budget The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is the largest office within the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP). OMB's most prominent function is to produce the president's budget, but it also examines agency programs, pol ...
gave a
Federal Register The ''Federal Register'' (FR or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains government agency rules, proposed rules, and public notices. It is published every weekday, except on fede ...
Notice, the "Revisions to the Standards for the Classification of Federal Data on Race and Ethnicity," which defined new racial and ethnic definitions. As of September 30, 2007, the EEOC's EEO-1 report must use the new racial and ethnic definitions in establishing grounds for racial or ethnic discrimination. If an employee identifies their ethnicity as "Hispanic or Latino" as well as a race, the race is not reported in EEO-1, but it is kept as part of the employment record. A person's skin color or physical appearance can also be grounds for a case of racial discrimination.The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "Race/Color Discrimination." August 15, 2007. "We may use this for the purpose of race and ethnicity." Discrimination based on national origin can be grounds for a case on discrimination as well.


Successes

On May 1, 2013, a
Davenport, Iowa Davenport is a city in and the county seat of Scott County, Iowa, United States. Located along the Mississippi River on the eastern border of the state, it is the largest of the Quad Cities, a metropolitan area with a population of 384,324 and ...
jury awarded the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commissission damages totaling $240 million — the largest verdict in the federal agency's history — for disability discrimination and severe abuse. The jury agreed with the EEOC that Hill County Farms, doing business as Henry's Turkey Service subjected a group of 32 men with intellectual disabilities to severe abuse and discrimination for a period between 2007 and 2009, after 20 years of similar mistreatment. This victory received international attention and was profiled in the New York Times. On June 1, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court held in an 8–1 decision written by Justice Antonin Scalia that an employer may not refuse to hire an applicant if the employer was motivated by avoiding the need to accommodate a religious practice. Such behavior violates the prohibition on religious discrimination contained in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. EEOC General Counsel David Lopez hailed the decision. "At its root, this case is about defending the quintessentially American principles of religious freedom and tolerance," Lopez said. "This decision is a victory for our increasingly diverse society and we applaud Samantha Elauf's courage and tenacity in pursuing this matter.”


Criticism

Some employment-law professionals criticized the agency after it issued advice that requiring a high school diploma from job applicants could violate the
Americans with Disabilities Act The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA () is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability. It affords similar protections against discrimination to Americans with disabilities as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 ...
. The advice letter stated that the longtime lowest common denominator of employee screening must be "job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity." A Ballard Spahr lawyer suggested, "There will be less incentive for the general public to obtain a high school diploma if many employers eliminate that requirement for job applicants in their workplace." The EEOC has been criticized for alleged heavy-handed tactics in their 1980 lawsuit against retailer Sears, Roebuck & Co. Based on a statistical analysis of personnel and promotions, EEOC argued that Sears both was systematically excluding women from high-earning positions in commission sales and was paying female management lower wages than male management. Sears, represented by lawyer Charles Morgan, Jr., counter-argued that the company had encouraged female applicants for sales and management, but women preferred lower-paying positions with more stable daytime working hours, as compared to commission sales, which demanded evening and weekend shifts and featured drastically varying paychecks, depending on the numbers of sales in a given pay period. In 1986, the court ruled in favor of Sears on all counts and noted that the EEOC had neither produced a single witness who alleged discrimination nor identified any Sears policy that discriminated against women. In a 2011 ruling against the EEOC, Judge
Loretta A. Preska Loretta A. Preska (born January 7, 1949) is an American federal judge who is currently a senior U.S. District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Born in Albany, Preska received law degrees from For ...
declared that the agency relied too heavily on
anecdotal Anecdotal evidence is evidence based only on personal observation, collected in a casual or non-systematic manner. The term is sometimes used in a legal context to describe certain kinds of testimony which are uncorroborated by objective, indepen ...
claims rather than on hard data, in a lawsuit against
Bloomberg, L.P. Bloomberg L.P. is a privately held financial, software, data, and media company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was co-founded by Michael Bloomberg in 1981, with Thomas Secunda, Duncan MacMillan, Charles Zegar, and a ...
that alleged discrimination against pregnant employees. In a ruling described in the ''New York Times'' as "strongly worded," Preska wrote, "the law does not mandate ' work-life balance' and added that while Bloomberg had expected high levels of dedication from employees, the company did not treat women who took pregnancy leave differently from those who took leave for other reasons. During the Trump administration, the EEOC came under criticism for being ineffective. The budget allocated to the EEOC by Congress has forced it to downsize, cutting its original staffing levels by over 40%.


Commissioners

All Commission seats and the post of general counsel to the commission are filled by the US President, subject to confirmation by the Senate.


Current

Reappointed to serve a second consecutive term.


Former

* Luther Holcomb, 1965–1974 *
Aileen Hernandez Aileen Hernandez (born Clarke; May 23, 1926 – February 13, 2017) was an African-American union organizer, civil rights activist, and women's rights activist. She served as the president of the National Organization for Women (NOW) between 1970 ...
, 1965–1966 * Vicente T. Ximenes, 1967–1971 * Samuel C. Jackson, 1965–1968 * Richard Alton Graham, 1965–1966 * Elizabeth Kuck, 1968–1970 * Ethel B. Walsh, 1971–1980 * Colston A. Lewis, 1970–1977 * Raymond Telles, 1971–1976 *
J. Clay Smith Jr. John Clay Smith Jr. (April 15, 1942 – February 15, 2018) was a lawyer, author, and American educator. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He graduated from Creighton University in 1964. He received his master's and doctorate's degree from ...
, 1978–1982 * Hon. Daniel Leach, 1976–1981 * Armando Rodriguez, 1978–1983 * Cathie Shattuck, 1982–1983 *
Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1 ...
, 1982–1990 * Tony Gallegos, 1982–1994 * R. Gaull Silberman, 1984–1995 *
Joy Cherian Dr. Joy Cherian is the first Asian American and first Indian American Commissioner at the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Joy Cherian was appointed as the Commissioner at the United States Equal Employment Opportun ...
, 1987–1993 * William Webb, 1982–1986 * Fred Alvarez, 1984–1987 * Evan J. Kemp, Jr., 1987–1993 * Joyce Tucker, 1990–1996 * Gilbert Casellas, 1994-1997 *
Paul Igasaki Paul M. Igasaki (born July 25, 1955) was the Chair and Chief Judge of the Administrative Review Board at the U.S. Department of Labor. Previously he was the Deputy Chief Executive Officer of Equal Justice Works, a national organization that advan ...
, 1994-2002 *
Paul Steven Miller Paul Steven Miller (May 4, 1961 – October 19, 2010) was the Henry M. Jackson Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law.
, 1994–2004 * Reginald E. Jones, 1996–2000 * Ida L. Castro, 1998–2001 * Cari M. Dominguez, 2001–2006 * Leslie E. Silverman, 2002–2008 * Stuart J. Ishimaru, 2003–2012 * Naomi C. Earp, 2003–2009 *
Christine Griffin Christine M. Griffin (born February 10, 1955) is an American lawyer. From 2011 to 2013 she served as Assistant Secretary for Disability Policies and Programs for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services. After military ser ...
, 2006–2009 * Constance S. Barker, 2008–2016 * Jacqueline A. Berrien, 2010–2014 *
Chai Feldblum Chai Rachel Feldblum (born April 1959)Jenny R. Yang, 2010–2019 *
Victoria Lipnic Victoria Ann Lipnic (born 1960) is an American lawyer and public figure. She served in multiple senior United States government positions. She was Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), nominated to two terms by ...
, 2010–2019 * Janet Dhillon, 2019–2022


Chairs


General counsels

* Charles T. Duncan, 1965-1966 *Richard Berg (Acting), 1966-1967 *Kenneth Holbert (Acting), 1967 *Daniel Steiner, 1967-1969 *Russell Spector (Acting), 1969 *Stanley P. Herbert, 1969-1971 *Jack Pemberton, 1971-1972 *William Carey, 1972-1975 *Julia Cooper (Acting), 1975 *Abner Sibal, 1975-1978 *Charles A. Shanor, 1987-1990 * Donald Livingston, 1990-1993 * Clifford Gregory Stewart, 1995-2000 * Eric Dreiband, 2003-2005 * Ronald S. Cooper, 2006-2009 * David Lopez, 2010-2016 *Sharon Fast Gustafson, 2019-2021


See also

* Equal employment opportunity * Title 29 of the Code of Federal Regulations *
PATCOB PATCOB (Professional, Administrative, Technical, Clerical, Other white collar, and Blue collar) are occupational categories established by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). They are used for statistical reporting on data collected by ...
* Race and ethnicity (EEO) *
Katherine Pollak Ellickson Katherine Pollak Ellickson (September 1, 1905 – December 28, 1996) was an American labor economist. For much of her career, she worked for the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). During the Kennedy administration, she was executive dire ...
* USA.gov


References


External links

*
Proposed and finalized federal regulations from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Role of Equal employment opportunity commissionRecords of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in the National Archives (Record Group 403)
discusses the fairly recent case involving allegations against Bloomberg unfairly treating pregnant women. Bloomberg won because of a lack of statistics on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's part. However, it is still possible for the federal government to appeal and the witnesses can individually sue Bloomberg for discrimination. *https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Federal_Civil_Penalties_Inflation_Adjustment_Act_of_1990 {{authority control Civil rights organizations in the United States Disability rights organizations Government agencies established in 1965 Independent agencies of the United States government United States administrative law Second-wave feminism Demographics of the United States Race and law in the United States 1965 establishments in Washington, D.C.