According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 201216 Strategic Enforcement Plan, the number of discrimination charges filed since the onset of the economic downturn has increased dramatically. Faced with these conditions, the EEOC concluded that the most efficient way to target discrimination is to find and pursue large"systemic"cases. In fiscal year 2011 the EEOC conducted 580 systemic investigations, filed 84 systemic lawsuits, and settled 35 systemic cases for a total of $9.6 million.
Recent experience has shown that no charge is immune from the EEOC’s search for systemic litigation. For example, in a single disability and age failure-to-hire charge, the EEOC requested nationwide data regarding preemployment tests that were neither taken nor complained of by the charging party. In another single charge of hiring discrimination at one facility, the EEOC’s first request for information sought hiring data for all the employer’s facilities nationwide over a three-year period.
