Employment discrimination charges filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) reached an all-time high in 2011.
A total of 99,947 charges of employment discrimination were filed with the EEOC in Fiscal 2011, compared to 99,922 in Fiscal 2010. This sets a new record for discrimination claims.
Once again, charges alleging retaliation under all the statutes the EEOC enforces were the most numerous at 37,334 charges received, or 37.4 percent of all charges, followed by charges of race discrimination ( 35,395) and sex discrimination (28,534).
Other allegations include:
- Disability discrimination–25,742
- Age discrimination—23,465
- National Origin discrimination – 11,833
- Religious discrimination – 4,151
- Color discrimination – 2,832
- Equal Pay Act – 919
- Genetic Discrimination Act – 245
The EEOC filed 300 lawsuits in 2011, which resulted in $91 million of relief. Twenty-three of the lawsuits involved systemic allegations involving large numbers of people.
Through its combined litigation, enforcement, mediation programs, the EEOC obtained $455.6 million in relief for private sector, state, and local employees and applicants, an increase of more than $51 million from the 2010 fiscal year and a new record for the agency.
Of possible interest to workplace anti-bully advocates, the EEOC’s enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) produced the highest increase in monetary relief among all of the statutes the EEOC enforces: the administrative relief obtained for disability discrimination charges increased by almost 35.9 percent to $103.4 million. Back impairments were the most frequently cited impairment under the ADA, followed by other orthopedic impairments, depression, anxiety disorder and diabetes. Many of these ADA claims could be stress related – targets of workplace bullying suffer high levels of stress that are blamed for short-and long-term physical impairment.
The EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.
The fiscal year 2011 enforcement and litigation statistics, which include trend data, are available on the EEOC’s website at http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/index.cfm
