According to the annual Performance and Accountability Report released in November, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) finished fiscal year 2011 with a 10 percent decrease in its pending-charge inventory, the first such reduction since 2002. At the same time, the agency achieved the highest-ever monetary amounts through administrative enforcement, and it received a record number of discrimination charges.
The fiscal year ended on September 30, 2011, with 78,136 pending charges, a decrease of 8,202 charges. The agency received 99,947 discrimination charges during the fiscal year — the most in the agency’s 46-year history. More than $364.6 million in monetary benefits was recovered in workplace discrimination cases — another highest-ever-in-agency-history figure. The report also estimates that the EEOC’s public outreach and education programs reached approximately 540,000 persons directly.
According to EEOC Chair Jacqueline A. Berrien, the record-breaking year is the result of the agency “strategically manag[ing] existing resources and take full advantage of increased resources in the past two fiscal years to make significant progress towards effective enforcement of the nation’s civil rights laws.”
Here are some more figures about the EEOC’s banner year from the report:
- At the end of fiscal year 2011, there were 580 systemic investigations involving more than 2,000 charges under way.
- The private sector mediation program obtained $170 million in monetary benefits for complainants and secured 9,831 resolutions, two more historic highs.
- In the federal sector, the Commission resolved a total of 7,672 requests for hearings as well as 4,510 appeals from final agency determinations.