EEOC Releases Enforcement and Litigation Data for Fiscal Year 2016

Written By ESR News Blog Editor Thomas Ahearn

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has released detailed breakdowns of the Enforcement and Litigation Statistics for the 91,503 charges of workplace discrimination the agency received in fiscal year 2016, which was the second year in a row that the number of charges filed with EEOC increased. The EEOC Enforcement and Litigation Statistics are available at www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/.

The EEOC – the agency enforcing federal laws prohibiting employ­ment discrimination – resolved 97,443 charges and secured more than $482 million for victims of discrimination in private, federal, and state and local government workplaces. The EEOC reduced the workload of pending charges by 3.8 percent to 73,508, the lowest pending charge workload in three years. The charge numbers show the following breakdowns by bases alleged:

• Retaliation: 42,018 (45.9 percent of all charges filed).
• Race: 32,309 (35.3 percent of all charges filed).
• Disability: 28,073 (30.7 percent of all charges filed).
• Sex: 26,934 (29.4 percent of all charges filed).
• Age: 20,857 (22.8 percent of all charges filed).
• National Origin: 9,840 (10.8 percent of all charges filed).
• Religion: 3,825 (4.2 percent of all charges filed).
• Color: 3,102 (3.4 percent of all charges filed).
• Equal Pay Act: 1,075 (1.2 percent of all charges filed).
• Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act: 238 (.3 percent of all charges filed).

NOTE: These percentages add up to more than 100 because some charges allege multiple bases.

“EEOC advances opportunity for all of America’s workers and plays a critical role in helping employers build stronger workplaces,” EEOC Chair Jenny Yang stated in a press release about the data. “Despite the progress that has been made, we continue to see discrimination in both overt and subtle forms. The ongoing challenge of combating employ­ment discrimination is what makes EEOC’s work as important as ever.”

The EEOC legal staff resolved 139 lawsuits and filed 86 lawsuits alleging discrimination in fiscal year 2016, and achieved a successful outcome in 90.6 percent of all suit resolutions. This is also the first year the EEOC included detailed information about LGBT charges in its year-end summary.  The EEOC resolved 1,650 charges and recovered $4.4 million for LGBT individuals who filed sex discrimination charges with EEOC in fiscal year 2016.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. The EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The complete text of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is available at www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/titlevii.cfm. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov/.

ESR Helps Employers Comply with EEOC Guidance on Criminal Records

On April 25, 2012, the EEOC issued updated “Enforcement Guidance on the Consideration of Arrest and Conviction Records in Employment Decisions Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964” that has changed the way U.S. employers perform criminal record background checks workers. The EEOC Guidance is available at www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/arrest_conviction.cfm.

Employment Screening Resources® (ESR) – a global background check provider accredited by the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS9®) – helps employers comply with EEOC Guidance for criminal records with blogs, resources, and a whitepaper written by ESR founder and CEO Attorney Lester Rosen. To read more about the EEOC, visit www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/tag/eeoc/.