Ten years ago, a special Task Force of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) issued a Report recommending that the agency make systemic workplace discrimination enforcement a “top priority.” The Task Force Report outlined a number of strategies and recommendations for enhancing the agency’s systemic enforcement efforts, which include both “pattern or practice” cases (where discrimination is alleged to be the company’s standard operating procedure), as well as cases where alleged discrimination has a “broad impact on an industry, profession, company, or geographic location.”
In its first comprehensive review since the Systemic Task Force Report was published in 2006, the EEOC has released a follow-up Report titled “Advancing Opportunity: A Review of the Systemic Program of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.” Largely self-serving — and significantly downplaying the more-than-a-few reversals by the federal courts — the July 7, 2016, Report concludes that the EEOC’s systemic enforcement program has been an unqualified success in “advancing workplace opportunity” under the federal EEO laws.
According to EEOC Chair Jenny Yang, the Report confirms that the agency’s systemic program has “opened up job opportunities for women in traditionally male industries, for African-Americans and Latinos barred by background checks, for workers with disabilities screened out by medical inquiries, and for older workers shut out by stereotyping.” The Report concludes by stating that there is “growing awareness of the need for EEOC to…more aggressively pursue cases involving broad-based discrimination.”
The Report is available here.
Members of the Equal Employment Advisory Council (EEAC) can read more here.