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EEOC History: 2020 - 2023

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Milestones: 2020

  • In FY 2020, the agency secured a record $535.4 million for workers subjected to discrimination, including:             
    • $333.2 million for individuals in private sector and state and local government workplaces through mediation, conciliation, and other administrative settlements.
    • $106 million through litigation,
    • $96.2 million for federal employees and applicants.
  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, the EEOC continued to serve the public and enforce the nation’s employment nondiscrimination laws while ensuring that all of our activities were consistent with public health guidelines. The EEOC posted a webinar addressing questions arising under the EEO laws and the COVID-19 pandemic, including questions submitted by the public about how to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in light of the federal employment nondiscrimination laws the EEOC enforces--including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Title VII, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
  • In response to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and others and the resulting protests opposing systemic racism, the Commission issued a unanimous resolution committing the agency to redoubling its efforts to address institutionalized racism, advance justice, and foster equality of opportunity in the workplace.

  • The agency launched new data resources, including:

    • EEOC Explore, an interactive data query and mapping tool that gives users access to the most current, granular, and privacy protected aggregate EEO-1 data publicly available and allows users to analyze aggregate data associated with more than 56 million employees and 73,000 employers nationwide.
    • Data Visualizations to display enforcement data in a simple, comprehensible, and visually appealing way. The visualizations show charge data trends data over five years.

    Screenshot of EEOC Explore

    EEOC Explore

Notable Supreme Court Decisions

  • In Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020), consolidated with two related cases—EEOC v. R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc., and Zarda v. Altitude Express, Inc.—the Supreme Court held that Title VII’s “because of . . . sex” provision prohibits discrimination based on an employee’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The Supreme Court affirmed the Sixth Circuit’s ruling for the EEOC in Harris Funeral Homes, which held that defendant’s termination of a funeral director because she was transgender constituted sex discrimination under Title VII. The Court also affirmed the Second Circuit’s ruling in Altitude Express, where the EEOC supported plaintiff as amicus curiae in the court of appeals, that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation constitutes sex discrimination. 
  • In Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru, 140 S. Ct. 2049 (2020), the Supreme Court, agreeing with the position of the EEOC as set forth in the Department of Justice’s amicus curiae brief, held that the “ministerial exception” to employment discrimination laws applied to two elementary school teachers at Catholic schools who taught religion classes along with the rest of the curriculum. The Court said that because the teachers in these cases were required to instruct their students in the Catholic faith and to guide them in how to live their lives according to Catholic principles, they fell within the ministerial exception.

Notable Appellate Decisions

  • In EEOC v. Vantage Energy Services, Inc., 954 F.3d 749 (5th Cir. 2020), the EEOC filed suit seeking relief for an individual who timely filed an unverified EEOC intake questionnaire and later (nine months after the end of the charge-filing period) submitted a verified charge of discrimination alleging unlawful discharge based on disability. The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s dismissal of the case on the ground that the intake questionnaire was not a verified charge and agreed with the EEOC that the agency was not required to “plead with specificity that [the charging party] timely filed his charge or that the EEOC provided Vantage notice of the charge,” because Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(c) permits conditions precedent to be pled generally.   
  • In Rizo v. Yovino, 950 F.3d 1217 (9th Cir. 2020) (en banc), the Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed the district court’s denial of summary judgment to defendant, the Fresno County Office of Education. The defendant argued that it had established an affirmative defense under the Equal Pay Act (EPA) by showing that the female math consultant was paid less than her male colleagues because she earned less than they did in previous jobs. The EEOC filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the plaintiff. A six-judge majority concluded that an employer cannot rebut an EPA claim through evidence that it based starting salary on an employee’s prior pay, even in combination with other factors. The court agreed with the EEOC that because Congress intended through the EPA “to eliminate deeply rooted pay discrimination between male and female employees who perform the same work,” employers were not permitted to rely on prior pay to justify wage disparities.
  • In Frappied v. Affinity Gaming Black Hawk, LLC, 966 F.3d 1038 (10th Cir. 2020), the Tenth Circuit held that claims of discrimination based on sex plus age are cognizable under Title VII.  Nine former employees -- eight women and one man -- had sued defendant for discriminatory discharge under Title VII and the ADEA. The female plaintiffs alleged defendant discharged them because they were women age 40 or older. The district court ruled that sex-plus-age claims could not be brought under Title VII. The EEOC filed an amicus curiae brief in support of the female plaintiffs’ appeal. The Tenth Circuit said that although no court of appeals had yet addressed the sex-plus-age issue, the EEOC in its compliance manual had recognized such claims, and there was “no material distinction between a sex-plus-age claim and the other sex-plus claims [the court had] previously recognized for which the ‘plus-’ characteristic is not protected under Title VII.”

Notable EEOC Resolutions       

  • EEOC v. Jackson National Life Insurance Company, Jackson National Life Distributors, LLC, and Jackson National Life Insurance Company of New York (D. Colo. Jan. 7, 2020), settled for $20.5 million in damages to 21 affected individuals, including attorney’s fees to 6 intervenors. The discrimination involved subjecting Black, female, and African employees to race, color, sex, and national origin discrimination in promotions, compensation, terms and conditions of employment, discipline, and discharge, and retaliating in various ways against employees who opposed the discriminatory conduct or filed charges with the EEOC. 
  • In EEOC v. Walmart, Inc. (E.D. Ky. Sept. 9, 2020), the EEOC obtained $20 million for a class of women who were subjected to a physical abilities test in hiring that had a disparate impact on female applicants, who failed the test at a statistically significant higher rate than male applicants, and the test was not job-related and consistent with business necessity.
  • The agency resolved EEOC v. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (C.D. Cal. June 9, 2020), for $10 million in damages to 45 claimants who were laid off, forced into retirement, and denied rehire due to their ages (age 40 and over).   
  • In EEOC v. Baltimore County et al. (D. Md. Apr. 24, 2020), the EEOC settled with Baltimore County for approximately $5.4 million to benefit over 2,000 county employees to resolve employee contribution rates that were based on age at entry into the county’s retirement system, with older employees paying higher rates than younger employees for the same benefits.
  • EEOC v. Performance Food Group, Inc. (D. Md. Dec. 16, 2020), settled for $5 million in damages to women rejected for selector, driver, or forklift positions because of their sex. The evidence included instructing managers not to hire women into warehouse jobs, female applicants being told by interviewers that defendant did not believe women were appropriate for warehouse positions, and a statistically significant underrepresentation of women in these positions.
  • In EEOC v. FedEx Ground Package System, Inc. (W.D. Pa. May 11, 2020), the EEOC settled for $3.3 million to resolve the defendant’s failure to provide deaf and hard-of-hearing applicants with reasonable accommodations during the hiring process; failure to provide deaf and hard-of-hearing package handlers with reasonable accommodations for safety and operational meetings, training, and workplace communications; and failure to modify equipment to ensure the workers could perform essential job functions, meet production quotas, and receive safety notifications.   
  • In EEOC v. Norfolk Southern Corp. and Norfolk Southern Railway Co. (W.D. Pa. July 27, 2020), the EEOC settled for $2.5 million in damages to 37 individuals who were disqualified from employment based on actual, record of, or regarded as disabilities disclosed during medical evaluations. The discrimination also involved defendants’ medical department applying blanket exclusionary policies to disqualify individuals using certain medications or with certain conditions, and defendants denying reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities.   
  • EEOC v. MVM, Inc. (D. Md. Dec 17, 2020), settled for $1.6 million in backpay and compensatory damages to employees of African or Caribbean descent who worked at designated NIH facilities and were subjected to disparate terms and conditions of employment, a hostile work environment, and discharge or constructive discharge due to their national origin, and retaliated against for opposing the discrimination.
  • The EEOC settled EEOC v. Del Taco, LLC (C.D. Cal. Nov. 30, 2020), for $1.25 million to resolve claims of sexual harassment and retaliation of female employees (some of them teens) at a number of defendant’s restaurants. The harassment involved almost daily sexual harassment of young female workers and when the female employees complained to human resources, defendant failed to adequately respond or stop the harassment and retaliation.
  • In EEOC v. Air Systems, Inc. (N.D. Cal. Aug. 20, 2020), the EEOC resolved a race (Black) discrimination case for $1.25 million in damages to eight victims who were subjected to racially offensive conduct from coworkers that included racist graffiti, racist taunting, threats of lynching, and display of a noose.   

Notable EEOC Trial Victories

  • In EEOC v. Enoch Pratt Free Library (D. Md. Dec. 23, 2020), following a five-day bench trial, the court ruled in favor of the EEOC, awarding backpay and liquidated damages to five female librarian branch managers who were paid less than a male branch manager for performing substantially equal work. The court also required defendant to make adjustments to the individuals’ retirement accounts consistent with the backpay awards.

EEOC Regulations

  • The Commission issued a Final Rule establishing procedural regulations for the agency’s issuance of guidance.

EEOC Resource Documents

Milestones: 2021

  • In FY 2021, the EEOC secured more than $484 million for workers subjected to discrimination in private, state and local government, and federal workplaces. This included:
    • Approximately $350.7 million for individuals in private sector and state and local government workplaces through mediation, conciliation, and settlements;
    • $34 million for individuals through litigation; and
    • More than $100 million for federal employees and applicants.

  • On January 21, 2021, President Joe Biden named Charlotte A. Burrows Chair of the EEOC.

    Chair Charlotte A. Burrows

    Chair Charlotte A. Burrows
  • The EEOC launched the following initiatives in 2021:
    • The Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Algorithmic Fairness Initiative to analyze how existing and developing technology influences employment decisions. This initiative aims to guide employers, employees, job applicants, and vendors in complying with the federal equal employment opportunity laws when using technology in hiring and other employment decisions.
    • A joint initiative with the Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to raise awareness about retaliation issues when workers exercise their protected labor rights.
  • The EEOC held its first-ever, all virtual public hearing by videoconference to examine the workplace civil rights implications of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • The Commission unanimously approved resolutions in 2021 condemning violence, harassment, and acts of bias Against Jewish and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) individuals in the United States and reaffirmed the Commission’s commitment to combat all forms of harassment and discrimination against members of the Jewish and AAPI communities, and to ensure equal opportunity, inclusion, and dignity for all in the workplace.
  • The agency translated key online resource documents into seven additional languages on the EEOC’s website to help improve access for people with limited English proficiency. In addition to the existing Spanish translations, key documents, fact sheets, and publications became available in Arabic, Chinese, Haitian Creole, Korean, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese on eeoc.gov.

Notable Appellate Decisions

  • In EEOC v. W. Meade Place, LLP, 841 F. App'x 962 (6th Cir. 2021), the Sixth Circuit agreed with the EEOC in an Americans with Disabilities Act case that a reasonable jury could find that the decision-maker who fired the employee believed the employee had an impairment. The Sixth Circuit rejected the employer’s argument that the decision-maker “may not have considered an anxiety disorder to constitute a disability,” because “a ‘regarded as’ claim . . . requires only . . . a perceived impairment.” The employer need not perceive the impairment as limiting a major life activity. The court of appeals also held that a jury could find that the employer took prohibited action—termination—because the decision-maker believed the charging party had an actual or perceived impairment. The court concluded that the evidence allowed a jury finding that the employer “would not have terminated” the charging party “‘but for’ [her] admission of having an anxiety disorder and requesting [leave].”

Notable EEOC Resolutions

  • The EEOC resolved EEOC v. JBS USA, LLC, doing business as JBS Swift & Company (D. Colo. June 8, 2021), for $5.5 million in damages to approximately 300 Black, Somali, and Muslim employees, including many recent immigrants who did not speak English. The discrimination included denying the employees religious accommodations and subjecting them to harassment and discrimination based on race, national origin and religion, as well as retaliation.
  • EEOC v. Kimco Staffing Services, Inc. and Ryder Integrated Logistics, Inc. (C.D. Cal. May 25, 2021), was resolved by separate consent decrees with each defendant paying $1 million for a total of $2 million to about 123 claimants and providing significant injunctive relief.  The discrimination involved subjecting Black warehouse employees to racist comments from coworkers, disparate terms and conditions of employment, and retaliation.
  • In EEOC v. Cardinal Health and Howroyd-Wright Employment Agency dba AppleOne Employment Services (C.D. Cal. July 8, 2021), the EEOC obtained $1.45 million to resolve racial harassment and retaliation against Black employees working for a distributor of medical equipment and a staffing agency. The Black employees were subjected to derogatory racial comments, including use of the n-word and racist graffiti, were given less favorable assignments, were denied training, and were constructively discharged or fired. The defendants also were required to implement sweeping injunctive relief as part of the settlement.
  • EEOC v. Chicago Meat Authority (N.D. Ill. Oct. 7, 2021), settled for $1.1 million in damages to 93 claimants subjected to race discrimination. The discrimination involved failure to hire Black applicants because of their race, use of recruitment and hiring practices that had a disparate impact on Black applicants, and subjecting Black employees to racial harassment.

Notable EEOC Trial Victories

  • In EEOC v. Wal-Mart Stores East L.P. (E.D. Wis. July 15, 2021), following a four-day trial, the jury returned a verdict for the EEOC, awarding the charging party $150,000 in compensatory damages and $125 million in punitive damages (later reduced to the statutory cap of $300,000). The jury heard evidence that the defendant denied a sales associate with Down syndrome a reasonable accommodation and discharged and refused to rehire her because of her disability. The sales associate was hired in 1999 and worked a regular schedule three to four days a week. In November 2014, the retailer’s new computerized scheduling system changed the sales associate’s hours, which disrupted her commuting routine and interfered with her regular mealtime, causing her to get ill. The employer denied her request to return to her former schedule, and after disciplining her for attendance violations, discharged her for excessive absenteeism and refused to rehire her.

Notable Public Conciliation Agreements

  • Aerotek, a national temporary placement agency, agreed to pay $3.5 million to resolve federal systemic investigations relating to the discriminatory hiring and placement of individuals assigned to work at Aerotek’s clients based on age (over 40), sex, and race.

Notable Federal Sector Decisions

  • In Norbert K. v. Dep’t. of State, Appeal No. 2021001898 (Apr. 21, 2021), the EEOC reversed the agency’s dismissal of the complaint for failure to state a claim, finding that the conduct at issue – employees disparaging Chinese immigrants, mocking complainant’s language and communication skills, and interfering with complainant’s work performance by regularly skipping meetings, walking out of meetings just as complainant began to speak, and trying to bypass complainant’s authority by reporting directly to complainant’s superiors -- occurred in the context of a nationwide increase in harassment of Asian Americans and drew from two persistent sources of discrimination against Asian Americans: language or accent discrimination and the perception of Asian Americans as “forever foreign.” The decision also cited the Commission’s March 2021 unanimous resolution condemning the increased violence, harassment, and acts of bias against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. The complaint was remanded to the agency for processing.
  • In Lynne E. v. Dep’t. of Veterans Affairs, Appeal No. 0120170202 (June 17, 2021), the EEOC reversed the agency’s finding that the conduct complained of was insufficiently severe or pervasive to constitute harassment, and that, even if the conduct did constitute harassment, the agency had taken immediate, appropriate, and effective action. The EEOC found that the coworker who learned of complainant’s sexual orientation had effectively poisoned the atmosphere ahead of complainant’s arrival, and the agency was liable for the harassment because it failed to take immediate and appropriate corrective action. Instead, the agency merely allowed complainant to transfer to another duty station to avoid further coworker harassment, months after complainant first reported the harassment.
  • In Thomasina B. v. Dep’t. of Defense, Appeal No. 0120141298 (Feb. 9, 2021), req. for recon. granted in part, Request No. 2021002395 (June 9, 2021), the EEOC modified the agency’s decision that although the complainant had established that she was harassed by a coworker on the basis of sex, the agency was not liable because it had taken appropriate action once it learned of the harassment. Noting that complainant had also established discrimination with regard to the agency’s failure to take action to stop the spread of rumors and to the various actions the agency took against complainant in connection with her rumored relationship with a coworker, the EEOC found the agency liable for the coworker harassment, noting that the agency did nothing to stop the harassment, which lasted for one year, and did nothing to stop the spread of rumors. The EEOC further found the agency liable for supervisor harassment due to the tangible employment actions the complainant was subjected to, such as changes in her work location and restrictions on her movement.
  • In Larraine D., Denese G., Kerrie F. v. Agency for International Development, Appeal Nos. 2020003744, 45, 46 (Nov. 9, 2021), the EEOC remanded the complaints to the agency upon discovery that the agency’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) prepared the agency’s final decisions instead of the EEO office, finding that intrusion by the agency’s OGC into the EEO process negatively affected the impartiality and appearance of impartiality of the agency’s EEO program.

EEOC Guidance

  • In January 2021, the EEOC updated its Compliance Manual on Religious Discrimination. The document addresses Title VII’s prohibition against religious discrimination in employment, including topics such as religious harassment and workplace accommodation of religious beliefs and practices.

EEOC Resource Documents

  • The EEOC issued several resource documents, including:
    • A plain-language COVID-19 fact sheet for employees explaining the equal employment opportunity (EEO) rights of individuals during a pandemic (May 2021).
    • A new landing page on the EEOC’s website that consolidates information concerning sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination to educate employees, applicants, and employers about the rights of LGBTQI+ workers (June 2021).

Milestones: 2022

  • In FY 2022, the EEOC secured more than $513.7 million for workers subjected to discrimination in private, state and local government, and federal workplaces. This included:
    • Approximately $342 million for individuals in private sector and state and local government workplaces through mediation, conciliation, and settlements.
    • $39.7 million for individuals through litigation; and
    • More than $132 million for federal employees and applicants.
  • To ensure that the agency has the resources and tools it needs to continue to protect and advance civil rights, in fiscal year 2022, EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows authorized the hiring of 352 new positions, the majority of which were front-line positions (investigators, mediators, attorneys, and administrative staff, among other positions) to help strengthen the EEOC’s ability to fulfill the agency’s vital role in preventing and remedying employment discrimination.
  • The EEOC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) joined together to create the Hiring Initiative to Reimagine Equity (HIRE), a multi-year effort to expand access to good jobs to those in underrepresented communities, addressing key hiring and recruiting challenges. The HIRE initiative focuses on organizational policies and practices to reimagine equity and expand hiring opportunity, including removing unnecessary barriers to hiring, promoting effective, job-related hiring and recruitment practices to cultivate a diverse pool of qualified workers, promoting equity in the use of tech-based hiring systems, and developing resources to promote the adoption of innovative and evidence-based recruiting.
  • The EEOC and OFCCP held four virtual HIRE roundtables in 2022 that focused on promoting racial equity, reimagining equity for workers with gaps in their employment history, promoting skills-based hiring to make workplaces more inclusive, and the civil rights implications of the use of automated technology systems in the recruitment and hiring of workers.
  • The EEOC held three public listening sessions to develop and obtain public input on updating the agency’s Strategic Enforcement Plan, which sets forth the EEOC’s long term priorities. The first listening session was held in Buffalo, New York on Aug. 22, 2022, and focused on racial and economic justice. The second session focusing on vulnerable workers was held virtually on Sept. 12, 2022. The third and final session, held in Washington, DC on Sept. 22, 2022, included witnesses from civil rights and workers’ rights organizations; employer and human resource representatives; and attorneys representing plaintiffs and defendants in EEO matters.
  • The EEOC fully implemented the option for charging parties to select a nonbinary “X” gender marker during the intake process when filing a charge of discrimination.

  • The EEOC held a hearing to examine discrimination based on race, national origin, and sex in construction, titled “Knocking Down Walls: Discrimination and Harassment in Construction,” in which Commissioners heard about historical, statistical and experiential evidence of race- and sex-based harassment and discrimination that has limited opportunities for Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native American and female workers in construction. The hearing also explored promising practices to prevent and address systemic discrimination and potential solutions to increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the sector.

    Knocking Down Walls hearing on Zoom

    Knocking Down Walls: Discrimination and Harassment in Construction hearing
  • In December, Congress passed and President Joseph Biden signed the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), to become effective June 27, 2023. This act requires covered employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” to a worker’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, unless the accommodation will cause the employer an “undue hardship.” The PWFA applies only to accommodations.

Notable Appellate Decisions

  • In EEOC v. Ryan’s Pointe Houston, L.L.C., 2022 WL 4494148 (5th Cir. Sept. 27, 2022) (unpublished), the Fifth Circuit reversed an award of summary judgment against the EEOC. The EEOC had sued the owners of a 250-unit apartment complex and their management company for firing their property manager because of her Mexican national origin and pregnancy in violation of Title VII. The court of appeals held that the EEOC had produced direct evidence of national origin discrimination in the form of explicitly biased comments by individuals with authority over the property manager’s termination. The court also held that the EEOC had produced sufficient circumstantial evidence of sex discrimination to create a jury question.
  • In EEOC v. Cash Depot, LTD, 2022 WL 3644186 (5th Cir. Aug. 24, 2022) (unpublished), the EEOC alleged that the employer discriminated against charging party by failing to accommodate his disability when he sought to return to work after recovering from a stroke and by terminating him. The district court granted summary judgment for the employer, and the Fifth Circuit reversed. The Fifth Circuit observed that the EEOC “does not have the burden to prove its entire case on summary judgment”; rather, the employer “has the burden of establishing the absence of a genuine issue of material fact.” The court of appeals also faulted the district court for giving deference, rather than consideration, to the employer’s judgment on what were essential job functions.
  • In EEOC v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 38 F.4th 651 (7th Cir. 2022), an ADA case, the Seventh Circuit upheld EEOC’s favorable jury verdict in a case involving an employee with serious hearing, visual, and intellectual impairments. A jury agreed with the EEOC that the employer had failed to provide a reasonable accommodation and ended charging party’s employment in violation of the ADA. The jury awarded $200,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages (which the district court reduced to $100,000 to comply with the statutory cap). On appeal, the court rejected the employer’s contention that charging party could not perform the essential functions of his cart attendant position, holding that “whether certain functions are essential functions of a job under the ADA is an almost quintessential question of fact.”
  • In Patterson v. Georgia Pacific, LLC, 38 F.4th 1336 (11th Cir. 2022), the plaintiff, a human resources professional, alleged she was terminated in retaliation for giving deposition testimony in a pregnancy discrimination suit other individuals had filed against her previous employer. The district court granted summary judgment to defendant based on its determination that the plaintiff had not engaged in protected activity under Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision. The EEOC filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the plaintiff, and echoing many of the EEOC’s arguments, the Eleventh Circuit reversed.

Notable EEOC Resolutions

  • In EEOC v. Activision Blizzard, Inc., Inc., Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., Activision Publishing, Inc. and King.com, Inc. (C.D. Cal. Mar. 29, 2022), the EEOC obtained $18 million in damages to affected individuals to resolve an EEOC Title VII lawsuit alleging sexual harassment of female employees, pregnancy discrimination, and retaliation. The decree enjoined defendants from sex discrimination and retaliation and required defendants to reclassify alleged retaliatory terminations as voluntary resignations and ensure that terminated individuals are not prohibited from reemployment.
  • In EEOC v. American Freight Management Company, LLC d/b/a American Freight Furniture and Mattress (N.D. Ala. Feb. 2, 2022), the agency settled a nationwide sex discrimination lawsuit for $5 million to approximately 500 individuals. The discrimination involved the refusal to hire female applicants for sales and warehouse jobs because of their sex, with labor market data showing statistically significant underrepresentation of women in the employer’s sales and warehouse positions.
  • EEOC v. Plains Pipeline, L.P., Plains All American GP, LLC, Plains Marketing, L.P., and Copperhead Pipeline and Construction, Inc. (W.D. Tex. Aug. 5, 2022), settled for $1.75 million in damages to 16 aggrieved individuals subjected to a hostile work environment based on race and national origin (Black, Hispanic, White, Native American, and biracial), sex (male), and retaliation. The discrimination involved a supervisor repeatedly using racial slurs when addressing the employees and subjecting them to unwanted sexual touching and threats of physical violence.
  • The agency resolved EEOC v. Coughlin Inc. (D. Vt. June 16, 2022), for $1.6 million in damages to approximately 45 male and female employees, many of them teens, who were subjected to sexual harassment. The harassment included sexually explicit comments, requests for sex, and touching and hitting of employees’ breasts, buttocks, and genitals.  

Notable Public Conciliation Agreements

  • Circle K Stores Inc. agreed to pay $8 million to resolve nationwide disability, pregnancy, and retaliation discrimination. The discrimination involved denial of reasonable accommodations to pregnant employees and employees with disabilities, subjecting employees to involuntary unpaid leave, requiring employees be 100 percent healed to return to work, and termination.

Notable Federal Sector Decisions

  • In Cleveland C., Kenneth W., Marquis K., Roman G., Orlando O., Jeffery J., Shane L., Jay C., & Gilbert B. v. Dep’t of Defense (Washington Headquarters Services), Appeal Nos. 2020003894, -3895, -3896, 3897, 3898, 3899, 3900, 3901, 3902, & 3903 (Nov. 17, 2021), request for reconsideration denied 2022000893, et al. (Apr. 4, 2022), the EEOC found that the agency violated the Rehabilitation Act by adopting a blanket policy requiring Pentagon Force Protection Agency officers to be clean shaven because the agency failed to meet its burden of proving that there was no reasonable accommodation that would enable the complainants with pseudofolliculitis barbae (a chronic bacterial skin disorder brought on by shaving facial hair that predominantly affects African American males) to meet the agency’s existing policy and qualification standard governing facial hair and respirator fit, or an alternative approach that would still allow the officers to perform the essential functions of their position.
  • In Nathanial E. v. Dep’t. of Interior, EEOC Appeal No. 2021000613 (Jan. 13, 2022), the EEOC reversed the agency’s determination that although the evidence demonstrated that complainant’s supervisor subjected complainant to harassment based on his sexual orientation, there was no basis to impute liability to the agency for the supervisor’s actions, finding that the record demonstrated that the supervisor’s harassment included tangible employment actions.
  • In Melina K. v. Dep’t. of Veterans Affairs, EEOC Appeal No. 2021001468 (Mar. 8, 2022) and Willa M. v. Dep’t. of Veterans Affairs, EEOC Appeal No. 2020005021 (Mar. 14, 2022), the EEOC determined that due to the severity of the egregious racial harassment the African American complainants were subjected to by an agency doctor, compensatory damages in the amount of $175,000 and $125,000 were warranted.

EEOC Resource Documents

Milestones: 2023

  • In FY 2023, the agency secured a record $665 million for workers subjected to discrimination, including: 
    • $440.5 million for individuals in private sector and state and local government workplaces through mediation, conciliation, and other administrative settlements.
    • $22.6 million through litigation.
    • $202 million for federal employees and applicants.
  • The EEOC implemented the newly enacted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which was signed into law by President Biden on December 29, 2022 and became effective on June 27, 2023. The PWFA requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations to a qualified worker or applicant’s known limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, absent undue hardship to the employer. These long-overdue protections fill in the gaps of other federal antidiscrimination laws, helping to ensure the economic security and health of these workers. The EEOC began accepting PWFA charges; released educational resources for employees and employers; conducted broad public outreach; and published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to implement the PWFA.
  • The EEOC held a public hearing to examine the use of automated systems, including artificial intelligence (AI), in employment decisions, titled “Navigating Employment Discrimination in AI and Automated Systems: A New Civil Rights Frontier.” The Commission heard from witnesses ranging from computer scientists, civil rights advocates, legal experts, industrial-organizational psychologists, and employer representatives on the use of automated systems to make employment decisions, including the recruitment, hiring, monitoring, and firing of workers.
  • Chair Charlotte A. Burrows issued “Building For The Future: Advancing Equal Employment Opportunity in the Construction Industry,” a report discussing employment discrimination based on race, national origin, and sex in the construction industry through the lens of the Commission’s publicly resolved cases over the past decade. The report contains findings and offers next steps based on the agency’s enforcement experience, witness testimony presented at the EEOC’s May 2022 hearing on discrimination and harassment in construction and other Commission hearings, and academic research.
  • The EEOC commemorated the 60th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act (EPA) by releasing resources to the public, including:

Notable Supreme Court Decisions

  • In Groff v. DeJoy, 600 U.S. 447 (2023), the Supreme Court held that Title VII requires an employer that denies a religious accommodation to show that the burden of granting an accommodation would result in “a burden [that] is substantial in the overall context of an employer’s business,” taking into account “all relevant factors in the case at hand, including the particular accommodations at issue and their practical impact in light of the nature, size and operating cost of an employer.” The Supreme Court noted that “a good deal of the EEOC’s guidance in this area is sensible and will, in all likelihood, be unaffected by our clarifying decision today.”

Notable Appellate Decisions

  • In Sharp v. S&S Activewear, L.L.C., 69 F.4th 974 (9th Cir. June 7, 2023), a Title VII sex-based hostile work environment case, the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims. The plaintiffs, seven women and one man, alleged that their employer subjected them to violently misogynistic and sexually graphic music in the workplace. The district court dismissed the claim, holding that because both men and women were offended, and it was not directed at a particular employee or group, it was not harassment “because of” sex. The Ninth Circuit agreed with the EEOC as amicus curiae, quoting the EEOC’s brief in its decision, that “‘exposing employees to misogynistic and sexually graphic music can be discrimination because of sex, even where the employer exposes both women and men to material and even though both women and men find the material offensive.’”
  • In EEOC v. Charter Communications, LLC, 75 F.4th 729 (7th Cir. July 28, 2023),the EEOC alleged that the employer refused to provide a temporary schedule accommodation to a sales representative with cataract-related night blindness that made it unsafe for him to drive home from work in the dark, in violation of the ADA. The district court granted summary judgment to the employer on the ground that the employee did not need any accommodation to perform an essential job function once he arrived at work. The Seventh Circuit reversed and clarified that its prior precedent did not, as the district court believed, hold that the ADA requires accommodation only if the employee’s disability affects his ability to perform essential job functions once the employee is at work. The Seventh Circuit held that “if a qualified employee’s disability interferes with his ability to get to work, the employee may be entitled to a work-schedule accommodation if commuting to work is a prerequisite to an essential job function, such as attendance in the workplace, and if the accommodation is reasonable under all the circumstances.” Because commute-related cases “present problems that arise from the combination of employee choices and employer choices,” the proper analysis must “emphasize employee responsibility for the factors within the employee’s control, without losing sight of the employer’s control over work schedules.” Applying this analysis, the court concluded that a jury could find the employee’s requested accommodation—a second thirty-day extension of his shift change while he tried to move closer to the workplace—to be a reasonable accommodation. 
  • In Hamilton v. Dallas County, 79 F.4th 494 (5th Cir. Aug. 18, 2023) (en banc), a Title VII sex discrimination case challenging the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department policy allowing men but not women to select full weekends off, the Fifth Circuit abandoned its long-held precedent that limited the universe of adverse employment actions to so-called “ultimate employment actions.” Agreeing with the EEOC as amicus curiae, the Fifth Circuit held that “[i]nstead, a plaintiff need only show that she was discriminated against, because of a protected characteristic, with respect to hiring, firing, compensation, or the ‘terms, conditions, or privileges of employment’—just as the statute says.”

Notable EEOC Resolutions       

  • In EEOC v. AMTCR, Inc., AMTCR Nevada, Inc., AMTCR California, LLC (D. Nev. Jan 5, 2023), the EEOC obtained $1,997,500 for 41 individuals who were subjected to sexual harassment while working for affiliated entities that own and operate 21 McDonald’s franchises. Male and female employees, some teens, were subjected to groping, sexually explicit comments, and sexual requests from coworkers and managers. In one instance, after a charging party complained to management, a manager said the charging party should take the conduct as a compliment.
  • In EEOC v. Green Jobworks LLC (D. Md. Mar. 16, 2023), the EEOC obtained a default judgment of $2,692,265 for 48 female workers, consisting of $665,566 in lost wages with interest and an additional $2,026,698 in punitive damages. The discrimination involved a pattern or practice of sex discrimination in job assignments and assignment of work duties, including failure to hire female workers for demolition and laborer positions or to assign those workers to such positions because of their sex.
  • In EEOC v. Symphony Deerbrook, L.L.C. d/b/a Symphony of Joliet (E.D. Ill. April 12, 2023), the EEOC obtained $400,000 for 11 claimants who experienced pregnancy discrimination. The defendant required employees to disclose their pregnancies and obtain a doctor’s note indicating they could work without restrictions, while not imposing similar requirements on employees with nonpregnancy medical conditions; failed to accommodate pregnancy-related work restrictions, while accommodating the restrictions of nonpregnant employees; classified pregnant employees discharged due to work restrictions as ineligible for rehire; and denied pregnant employees reemployment following the birth of a child.
  • In EEOC v. R&L Carriers, Inc., and R&L Carriers Shared Services, LLC (S.D. Ohio April 24, 2023), the EEOC obtained $1.25 million for a class of about 200 women who were passed over for positions. Data showed the defendants denied dockworker and loader positions to women because of their sex, hired men over more qualified women, and made discriminatory statements that women should not be employed as loaders.
  • In EEOC v. The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company, (M.D. Tenn. May 3, 2023), the EEOC obtained $1.2 million for 31 Black employees who were subjected to racial harassment and retaliation. The discrimination involved referring to Black employees as “boy,” “m___ f___,” and “you”; racially offensive graffiti, such as the n-word and KKK references; and assigning Black employees the most physically difficult work while white employees were given more desirable assignments.
  • In EEOC v. Verona School District (W.D. Wisc. June 16, 2023), the EEOC obtained $450,000 for ten female claimants who faced pay discrimination. The discrimination involved paying nine female special education teachers and one female school psychologist a lower salary than less experienced male employees doing the same work.
  • In EEOC v. iTutorGroup, Inc.; Tutor Group Limited; and Shanghai Ping’An Intelligent Education Technology Co. Ltd. (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 8, 2023), the EEOC obtained $365,000 for more than 200 affected applicants who were subjected to age and sex discrimination. The discrimination involved programming application software to automatically reject female applicants over the age of 55 and male applicants over the age of 60.
  • In EEOC v. Scottsdale Healthcare Hospitals d/b/a HonorHealth (D. Ariz. Sept. 15, 2023), the EEOC obtained $1.75 million for approximately 100 claimants who faced disability discrimination when providers of medical care at hospital and medical facilities failed to provide reasonable accommodations to the charging party and other employees with disabilities and discharged or constructively discharged employees because of their disabilities or need for accommodation.

Notable EEOC Trial Victories

  • In EEOC v. Drivers Mgmt., LLC and Werner Enterprises, Inc. (D. Neb. Sept. 1, 2023), following a 5-day trial, the jury returned a verdict for the EEOC, awarding the charging party $75,000 in compensatory damages and $36,000,000 in punitive damages. The jury heard evidence that charging party, who is deaf, received a hearing exemption from the Department of Transportation’s Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, obtained his commercial driver’s license at a Werner-owned driving school, and applied to be an over-the-road truck driver for defendants. Despite the exemption program, defendants claimed that charging party was not a qualified individual under the ADA because he could not safely complete defendants’ in-house training program. Before the trial, the court had granted the EEOC’s partial motion for judgment as a matter of law, finding that causation was undisputed and then submitted only one issue to the jury: whether charging party could perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations.
  • In EEOC v. Coastal Drilling East, LLC (W.D. Pa. Sept. 5, 2023), following a 5-day trial, the jury returned a verdict for the EEOC, awarding charging party $24,375 in compensatory damages, and later awarding $56,093.03 in backpay, prejudgment interest, and an offset for negative tax consequences. The jury heard evidence that the charging party was subjected to racially derogatory language, including repeated use of the n-word, by his coworkers and a supervisor; was confronted with nooses from his coworkers; the defendant managers were aware of the racially hostile conduct and took no corrective action; charging party was laid off in November 2019; and the company invited him to return to work in January 2020, but he declined due to the racially hostile work environment.

Notable Public Conciliation Agreements

  • In March 2023, the EEOC successfully resolved a public conciliation of a Title VII investigation after finding evidence of national origin discrimination. The EEOC’s investigation found DHI Group, Inc., which operates a job-search website for technology professionals Dice.com, violated Title VII by allowing some of its customers to post positions that excluded applicants of U.S. national origin, deterring a class of workers from applying. Pursuant to the conciliation agreement, DHI agreed to compensate the estate of the original complainant, rewrite its programming to “scrape” for potentially discriminatory keywords, and revise its guidance to customers on its website pop-up to include instructions to avoid potentially discriminatory language. Through DHI’s use of programming to “scrape” for discriminatory postings, it agreed to use artificial intelligence as a solution to prevent and combat employment discrimination.
  • In December 2023, the EEOC successfully resolved a public conciliation of an ADEA and ADA investigation after finding evidence that Scripps Clinical Medical Group subjected a class of physicians to a mandatory retirement age, regardless of the physicians’ abilities to do the job. Pursuant to the conciliation agreement, Scripps Clinical Medical Group agreed to enter into a four-year conciliation agreement with the EEOC, pay $6,875,000 to a class of individuals impacted by the company’s mandatory retirement age policy, rescind its mandatory retirement policy based on age including reaffirmation of this recission from its Board of Directors, and inform employees of the recission.

Notable Federal Sector Decisions

  • In Anne G. v. Dep’t of Veterans Affairs, EEOC Appeal No. 2022003036 (January 31, 2023), the EEOC found evidence of a hostile work environment based on race and color as complainant was called “girl”; subjected to comments related to “lynching” and “ropes”; subjected to racially insensitive epithets at a work meeting; “forced” to act as a slave in a Juneteenth program; and subjected to comments related to the Juneteenth celebration that were based on racial stereotypes.
  • In Jaleesa P. v. U.S. Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 2021002648 (April 17, 2023), the EEOC concluded that agency management violated Title VII when a work rule prohibiting public displays of affection was only applied to complainant. The EEOC held that that the agency erred in neglecting the direct evidence of discrimination within the record, specifically, the supervisor testified that he told complainant not to engage in public displays of affection with her same-sex partner because the manager had indicated that he was offended by seeing complainant and her partner displaying affection towards each other.
  • In Assunta V. v. Dep’t of Homeland Security, EEOC Appeal No. 2021003725 (May 8, 2023), the EEOC found complainant was subjected to a hostile work environment based on her race and national origin when her first-line supervisor subjected her to anti-Asian comments and exhibited a pattern of disregarding the proper pronunciation of complainant’s name, and a hostile work environment based on sex by constantly referring to complainant as “mom” when she returned from maternity leave and monitoring and commenting to others on her whereabouts every time she was using the mother’s room in order to pump breast milk.

EEOC Regulations

  • The EEOC issued a Final Rule amending the Federal Sector EEO Complaint Processing Regulations to explicitly provide for the digital transmission of EEO documents, and to address the use of the Commission’s Electronic Portal. This final rule includes revisions that will enable complainants, federal agencies, and the EEOC to communicate and transmit hearing and appeal documents using digital and electronic methods, and the EEOC’s electronic Public Portal, as alternatives to using first class and certified mail.
  • In August 2023, the EEOC submitted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which mandates that employers provide accommodations to employees impacted by pregnancy, absent undue hardship. The EEOC proposed rule develops, and provides greater meaning to, provisions of the PWFA, including “reasonable accommodation,” “undue hardship,” and other provisions in the law.

EEOC Resource Documents