Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is an agency of the United States government dedicated to eradicating unlawful inequity in the workplace. The commission is bipartisan; appointed by the president of the United States, five commissioners and a general counsel set [Page 156]policy and endorse legal actions to prevent discrimination based on age, national origin, race, religion, sex, and, beginning in November 2009, genetic information. For many years, EEOC staff attorneys have been litigating cases that have had a major impact on concepts, theories, and legal principles relating to higher education. In light of the impact that the EEOC has on American higher education, this entry examines how it impacts activities at colleges and universities.

The EEOC enforces a variety of federal laws, including the Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), Sections 501 and 505 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, Titles I and V of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), the Civil Rights Act of 1991, and Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008. Some of these laws apply to private and public employers, educational institutions, and governments at both the state and local levels; others apply to American corporations operating overseas as well as multinational corporations operating in the United States; still others apply to the federal government itself.

Individuals can file charges alleging discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, or age, and charges can include disparate impact, retaliation, harassment, or hostile work environment. After preliminary review to determine administrative eligibility, EEOC staff members investigate the matter by conducting equal protection analyses; if warranted, the staff members may recommend mediation or legal action.

In many ways, the history of the EEOC ties directly to the history of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Consequently, some of the nation's most important advances dealing with affirmative action have come through EEOC-initiated litigation. From its establishment in July 1965, and throughout its history, the EEOC has been involved in groundbreaking litigation, much of it setting notable legal precedent. Furthermore, in some of the earlier cases in the 1960s, the role of the EEOC was secondary insofar as it filed so-called amicus curiae (literally, “friend of the court”) briefs seeking to influence the outcome of litigation. The congressional desire for voluntary compliance with 1960s legislation designed to create an equitable work environment for all proved insufficient, because employers continued to discriminate against workers. In response, the Congress approved the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972, which gave the EEOC authority to litigate.