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A Message from EEOC Chair Charlotte A. Burrows on Expanding Opportunity for All, January 2021-January 2025

Since its founding nearly 60 years ago, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) has helped many millions of workers obtain relief from discrimination based on race; color; religion; sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity); national origin; age; disability; genetic information; or pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. When I became EEOC Chair on January 20, 2021, the nation was facing a pandemic that had upended many workplaces, and the EEOC’s workforce was at its lowest level in 40 years. Together with the agency’s talented and dedicated career staff, we rebuilt the EEOC’s capacity, re-opened our offices to the public, provided real-time information for employees and employers in addressing the civil rights effects of COVID-19, and significantly increased the agency’s cases on behalf of American workers. While America unquestionably still has unfinished business in the area of civil rights, the Commission has done an incredibly effective job of protecting employees, supporting employers’ compliance efforts, and expanding public awareness and understanding of federal employment laws. Each year of the Biden administration, the agency has increased the amount it recovered for workers who suffered discrimination in their employment. In Fiscal Year 2024 alone, the EEOC obtained a record of nearly $700 million in recoveries, far above the agency’s annual budget of $455 million.

During my time as Chair, I had the opportunity to launch new initiatives addressing key employment issues, including ensuring that employers’ use of artificial intelligence complies with civil rights laws and highlighting lawful ways to increase diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility in hiring. We helped make real the promise of the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, by bringing cases to protect the LGBTQI+ workers who had been denied basic dignity at work simply because of who they are. I also had the privilege of leading the EEOC’s implementation of the Pregnant Workers’ Fairness Act (PWFA) and the development of guidance to combat unlawful harassment on all bases, along with numerous other documents to help the public understand the nation’s workplace civil rights laws.

Outreach and engagement with the public have been hallmarks of the agency during the past four years. The many online and in-person events conducted by our staff in our 53 offices across the country and each of the Commissioners to creating the EEOC’s very first process for consultation with Native American tribes, which itself was adopted after robust consultation with tribal nations. We also made it possible for the first time for attorneys to file their clients’ charges of discrimination directly through the attorney e-file system, and enhanced outreach through the REACH initiative. In addition, working with singer/songwriter John Legend, the EEOC released videos to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act to reach audiences that the agency might not usually reach.

It has been a tremendous honor to serve as the EEOC’s 17th Chair and to work with my fellow Commissioners, our staffs, and the EEOC’s wonderful career professionals during this momentous time. As the EEOC enters its 60th anniversary year, it is a pleasure to share a few of the accomplishments of this amazing agency over the past four years.

STRATEGIC APPROACH TO PROTECTING WORKPLACE CIVIL RIGHTS

Given the many civil rights challenges affecting the lives of working people in America today, the EEOC decided in the Biden-Harris administration to take a systemic, thoughtful, and detailed approach to determining how to best focus its resources. To that end, the EEOC undertook extensive internal conversations and a broad public engagement effort to develop both a Strategic Plan focused on operations and a Strategic Enforcement Plan for Fiscal Years 2024-2028 to guide its policy and enforcement work. The agency sought input from the public through a dedicated email box, as well as a series of public listening sessions, at which the Commission heard from a total of 35 witnesses, including representatives from civil rights and workers’ rights organizations, unions, employer and human resources representatives, scholars, and attorneys representing plaintiffs and defendants in employment discrimination matters. The EEOC then published the draft SEP in the Federal Register for a 30-day public comment period before finalizing the plan. The unprecedented public input demonstrates the continued importance of EEOC’s work and the vitality of the agency’s mission.

ADDRESSING BARRIERS IN RECRUITMENT AND HIRING

Today, bias in workplaces still limits employment opportunities for many and hampers America’s economic progress. Employer efforts to support talented employees of all backgrounds and cultivate a culture of respect not only help to fully achieve equal employment opportunity, but also to deliver broad benefits for our communities and economy. Employers that adopt well-crafted programs to systematically remove barriers to equal opportunity and ensure recruitment of workers from all demographic groups can identify the best-qualified workers and create workplace climates that discourage discrimination.

The EEOC took numerous steps, using a variety of tools, to help guide lawful efforts to remove barriers to equal opportunity for all workers and promote fair and inclusive workplaces. Through Commission-voted documents such as amicus briefs and federal sector decisions, the agency provided its position on legal requirements concerning such efforts. The agency also produced research and data analyses, including a report on the demographics of the high tech sector, and a hearing and report on harassment and discrimination in the construction industry, and joined with the Department of Labor to issue an important resource guide on employment of persons with disabilities for the Rehabilitation Act’s 50th anniversary.  

Together with the Department of Labor, I launched a joint initiative to engage stakeholders to examine how to expand access to good jobs for workers from underrepresented communities and help address key hiring and recruiting challenges. The agency also developed a number of resources, including promising practices documents, to help employers recruit, hire, advance, and retain the best talent, including workers with disabilities and those with a history of arrest or conviction. Some of the key litigation, federal sector, and policy documents in this area are set forth below.

PROTECTING VULNERABLE WORKERS AND PERSONS FROM UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES FROM EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION

While all workers may face discrimination, some are significantly more vulnerable to discriminatory conduct. This includes immigrant and migrant workers and workers on temporary visas; people with developmental or intellectual disabilities; workers with mental health related disabilities; individuals with arrest or conviction records; LGBTQI+ individuals; temporary workers; older workers; individuals employed in low wage jobs, including teenage workers employed in such jobs; survivors of gender-based violence; Native Americans/Alaska Natives; and persons with limited literacy or English proficiency.

To address the needs of these vulnerable workers and often underserved communities, the EEOC has engaged in significant outreach and education, including partnering with Tribal Employment Rights Offices (TERO) directors from the Nez Perce Tribe and Lummi Nation to launch a public service announcement to help educate Native Americans and Alaska Natives about their employment rights; adding key documents to the EEOC website in 10 languages in addition to continuing to add documents in Spanish; conducting Spanish language radio tours; and launching the REACH initiative, a multi-year effort led by Commissioner Kotagal, focused on ensuring that EEOC’s outreach and education efforts are effectively reaching those workers who generally are least likely to seek the agency’s assistance, despite their great need. The EEOC also jointly conducted a webinar with the Department of Labor for the H-2A and H-2B filing communities that discussed the importance of compliance with the anti-discrimination laws enforced by the EEOC. Additionally, to ensure equal employment opportunity for all workers, regardless of national origin, the EEOC also entered into Memoranda of Understanding with the United Mexican States, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. 

These included:

ADDRESSING SELECTED EMERGING AND DEVELOPING ISSUES, INCLUDING IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PREGNANT WORKERS’ FAIRNESS ACT, INCREASING RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION, AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA)

The PWFA, which was signed into law by President Biden on December 29, 2022, and went into effect June 27, 2023, gives workers with limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions the right to reasonable accommodations absent undue hardship to the employer. The EEOC is using all of its prevention and enforcement tools to ensure that pregnant and postpartum workers are able to fully participate in the American workplace. The agency published a final rule and interpretive guidance in April 2024, with an effective date of June 18, 2024, and developed numerous resources to assist employers, employees, health care providers and advocates in understanding the law and the new final regulation. The EEOC’s robust outreach and education efforts, including radio media tours, ensured members of the public knew their rights and responsibilities under the PWFA. EEOC has also filed its first lawsuits to enforce the PWFA’s protections.

Antisemitism and Discrimination Against Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern Employees

Both before and after October 7, 2023, the agency also responded to rising levels of antisemitism, and discrimination against employees who were, or were believed to be Arab, Muslim, or Middle Eastern. Although discrimination based on religion and national origin is not itself new, and the EEOC had already identified such forms of discrimination as a strategic enforcement priority before October 7, 2023, the agency understood the need to move quickly to counter the impact of international events on workers in the United States.

Artificial Intelligence

As artificial intelligence and other automated systems were increasingly being deployed in workplaces, I launched an agency-wide initiative to ensure that the use of software, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and other emerging technologies, in hiring and other employment decisions complied with the federal civil rights laws that the EEOC enforces. Through the initiative, the EEOC heard from a diverse set of stakeholders to increase its understanding of the impacts of these emerging technologies in the workplace, including at a Commission hearing. The EEOC used what it learned to educate workers, employers, and vendors of their rights and responsibilities under the laws and shared promising practices to prevent discriminatory harms.

Civil Rights Impacts of Covid-19

Both during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, the EEOC worked vigorously to provide information to support employers and employees grappling with the pandemic’s civil rights impacts.

ADVANCING EQUAL PAY FOR ALL WORKERS

In the words of the late Lilly Ledbetter, “equal pay for equal work is an American value.” In addition to filing litigation to enforce the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including a brief on behalf of the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, the Commission has brought attention in other ways to the significant, continued pay disparities that still exist based on race, sex, national origin, disability and other protected bases. The Commission released a data dashboard on Equal Pay Day in March 2024, featuring the historic, first-time collection of 2017 and 2018 pay data reported by about 70,000 private employers and certain federal contractors with 100 or more employees each year, representing over 100 million workers. This important tool contains aggregated employer-level workforce demographic and pay data reported by pay band and allows industries, employers, and individuals to assess how their pay by sex and race compares to others in their industry, job category, or state. Previously, in a Consensus Study Report commissioned by the EEOC and issued in July 2022, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine had evaluated this data collection and concluded that federal pay data collection is a necessary tool to find and fight pay discrimination effectively. The study provides helpful recommendations for the bipartisan Commission’s consideration of future efforts to collect pay data.

The EEOC made available a new resource in September 2024, “Older Women at Work: The Intersection of Age and Sex Discrimination,” highlighting enforcement activities and public education efforts to combat sex and age discrimination and support women’s economic security. 

In commemorating the Equal Pay Act’s 60th anniversary in June 2023, the EEOC launched an equal pay video campaign, “Level The Paying Field,” raising public awareness around the issue of sex-based pay discrimination and enabling the public to show support for equal pay for equal work. 

Earlier this month, the Commission issued a report titled, “The Impact of Age on the Gender Pay Gap in the Federal Sector,” examining data on over two million federal employees and finding that the gender pay gap was larger among employees age 40 and over. In three reports released in November 2023 that focused on different groups of women in the federal government—American Indian and Alaska Native women, African American women, and Hispanic women and Latinas—the EEOC found significant pay gaps and underrepresentation in leadership positions. 

PRESERVING ACCESS TO THE LEGAL SYSTEM

To complement its robust litigation to ensure access to the legal system, in addition to generally educating workers about their employment rights, the EEOC took steps to assist federal employees in understanding how to file complaints under the laws we enforce, examined the effectiveness of its alternative dispute resolution processes, and revised its rules for state and local government employees:

PREVENTING AND REMEDYING SYSTEMIC HARASSMENT

Addressing systemic harassment in workplaces has long been a priority for the EEOC because workplace harassment remains widespread. The EEOC’s robust enforcement confirms that harassment occurs in every industry and occupation, from farms to restaurants, construction to manufacturing, and hotel rooms to board rooms. The EEOC released a new Commission-voted enforcement guidance on harassment in the workplace, which is a comprehensive, critical resource that will help prevent harassment, advance equal opportunity, and enhance safety for all employees on the job. In addition, the EEOC issued several educational resources concerning harassment, including a fact sheet for small businesses, a resource for employees, and promising practices for preventing harassment in the federal sector. With the leadership of Vice Chair Samuels, the agency also developed resources particularly focused on combatting harassment the construction industry.

PUBLIC HEARINGS AND LISTENING SESSIONS 

KEY INITIATIVES

EXPANDED ACCESS AND SERVICE TO THE PUBLIC

Finally, over the past four years, the EEOC has made strides in enhancing its service to America’s workers by making available to the public more data about the American workforce.

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