House Subcommittee Questions Recent EEOC Activities
During a House Subcommittee hearing, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Jacqueline Berrien responded to questions about recent agency enforcement and regulatory initiatives. Among other topics, Berrien touched on an employer’s use of credit, criminal, and unemployment histories in making employment decisions, as well as the agency’s renewed focus on systemic discrimination cases.
Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) opened the hearing by commenting that the agency has “traditionally focused its enforcement activities on individual complaints of discrimination,” but that under the recently-approved Strategic Plan, the agency has “shifted more attention toward systemic discrimination that involves an alleged pattern or practice of discrimination. The commission has set a goal that up to 24 percent of all litigated cases be systemic in nature.” Walberg criticized this approach as not being in the best interest of employers and employees. He said that many such investigations “are launched without any employee alleging discrimination.” What purpose does it serve, he asked, when the EEOC investigates businesses without any evidence of wrongdoing? He claimed that the EEOC should not be diverting its resources to investigating “a hunch.”
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