The EEOC Litigation Review - 2023 - Report - Page 10
#1 - Eliminating Barriers In Recruitment and Hiring - The EEOC’s focus relative to this
priority is to address discriminatory recruiting and hiring practices that target racial,
ethnic, and religious groups, older workers, women, and people with disabilities.
According to the EEOC, addressing this priority typically involves strategic litigation with
systemic, pattern or practice cases.
#2 - Protecting Vulnerable Workers - The EEOC’s focus here is to combat policies and
practices directed against “vulnerable workers,” such as immigrants and migrant
workers.
#3 - Addressing Selected Emerging And Developing Issues - The priority focuses on
pushing the legal envelope on the contours of employment discrimination laws.
#4 - Ensuring Equal Pay Protections For All Workers - While the EEOC’s primary focus
has been combating pay discrimination based on sex, the Commission also addresses
pay discrimination based on any protected status, including race, ethnicity, age, and
disability.
#5 - Preserving Access to the Legal System - The Commission’s focus within this
priority is on practices that discourage or prohibit individuals from exercising their rights,
including overly broad waivers, releases, and mandatory arbitration provisions, failure to
maintain applicant and employee data, and retaliatory practices that dissuade
employees from exercising their rights. More often than not, this priority manifests itself
with lawsuits grounded on retaliation theories.
#6 - Preventing Systemic Harassment - This priority is directed at sexual harassment
but also harassment based on race, disability, age, national origin, and religion. In its
enforcement litigation, this strategic priority typically involves systemic, pattern or
practice cases.
Some – but certainly not all – of the EEOC’s lawsuits initiated over the past year fall into
one or more of these six categories. Further, while the Commission’s six major
enforcement priorities have remained consistent across its iterations of the SEP, the
EEOC has changed how it interprets those priorities.
In effect, this has lead the Commission to shift how it approaches litigation and the
issues it chooses to enforce in the courts. Additionally, the 2017-2021 SEP recognized
the importance of “systemic” cases to its overall mission. Systemic cases are those
with a strategic impact, insofar as they affect how the law influences a particular
community, entity, or industry.
The term of the last SEP expired at the end of Fiscal Year 2021, but it remains in effect
until modified or withdrawn. At the same time, the EEOC has announced its intention to
update and release a new SEP sometime in FY 2023.
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© Duane Morris LLP 2023
The EEOC Litigation Review – 2023
