Last week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced that strengthening its nationwide approach to investigating and litigating systemic cases of discrimination is now an agency-wide top priority. According to the EEOC, systemic cases involve a “pattern or practice, policy and/or class cases where the alleged discrimination has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company, or geographic location.”
The new effort arose out of recommendations made in an internal task force report. The task force was formed in 2005 to examine the EEOC’s systemic program and to recommend new strategies for addressing this type of employment discrimination. Over the course of the past year, task force members conducted interviews, held focus groups, and surveyed EEOC staff and external stakeholders.
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The report states that the EEOC doesn’t currently make a consistent or proactive effort to identify systemic discrimination, but instead typically focuses on individual allegations raised in bias charges. Recommendations include:
- Systemic investigations and litigation will be conducted in the field, and the systemic investigation and litigation units in headquarters will be eliminated.
- Each district in the field must develop Systemic Plans to ensure that the EEOC is identifying and investigating systemic discrimination in a coordinated, strategic, and effective agency-wide manner.
- The EEOC’s Office of General Counsel should facilitate the staffing of systemic cases using a national law firm model, so as to staff cases with employees who have the expertise needed in the particular case.
Additional Resources:
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
“The Complete Guide to Understanding and Preventing Age Bias in the Workplace,” a Special Report from the California Employer Advisor
Sample Policy Against Unlawful Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation