On September 29, 2023, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) announced its year-end litigation round-up, summarizing the Commission’s enhanced efforts to enforce federal employment laws. The EEOC enforces Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Equal Pay Act, and parts of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The EEOC filed 143 new employment discrimination lawsuits in FY ’23, which is double the number filed by the Commission in FY ’22. Included in the EEOC’s enforcement efforts this year were twenty-five “systemic lawsuits,” i.e., pattern or practice class cases where the discrimination results from systemic bias or has a broad impact on an industry, profession, company, or geographic location. That represents the largest number of systemic suits filed by the EEOC in the last five years. It also filed thirty-two non-systemic class suits seeking relief for multiple harmed parties.

In addition to the FY ‘23 litigation round up, the EEOC recently released a new Strategic Enforcement Plan that provides employers with a window into the areas of federal discrimination laws on which the Commission intends to focus its attention.  With the two recent releases, employers can be forewarned that the EEOC intends to use litigation to aggressively target “workplace discrimination, bias and hate” directed at racial and ethnic groups, LGBTQI+ individuals, and religious minorities and prioritizing protections for workers affected by pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, including under the new Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

Bean, Kinney & Korman’s employment practice group works proactively with employers of all sizes, to craft a full range of employment policies and documents to meet the compliance challenges of all applicable federal, state, and local laws, including those enforced by the EEOC. If you have questions or need assistance with your company’s employment policies and practices, please contact Doug Taylor at (703) 525-4000 or rdougtaylor@beankinney.com or your current Bean, Kinney & Korman attorney.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not contain or convey legal advice. Consult a lawyer. Any views or opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and are not necessarily the views of any client.