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INSTRUCTOR: The various federal Equal Employment Opportunity, or EEO, laws are enforced by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission known as the EEOC. The EEOC was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as an enforcement arm of the act. It is a federal agency that has significant power over employers in the process of investigating complaints of illegal discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information.

The EEOC is the federal agency primarily charged with the enforcement of the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity laws. The EEOC has three significant responsibilities-- first, investigating and resolving discrimination complaints either through conciliation or litigation, second, gathering and compiling statistical information on such complaints, and, third, running education and outreach programs on what constitutes illegal discrimination.

Additionally, every company with more than 100 employees or with more than 50 employees and with federal contracts totaling $50,000 must file an EEO-1 report with the EEOC each year. The EEO-1 identifies the company's EEO compliance data based on protected classifications within federal law. In addition, the EEO-1 has started including requirements for the reporting of compensation data from companies with more than 100 employees.

Individuals must typically file a complaint within 180 days of an incident or the last occurrence of the incident if it's ongoing. If the EEOC cannot come to an agreement with the organization, there are two options. First, the agency may aid the alleged victim in bringing suit in federal court, or, second, it can issue a right to sue letter to the victim. If the EEOC does not believe the complaint to be valid or fails to complete the investigation, the complainant still may sue in federal court or on their own.

Employees have the right to bring discrimination complaints against their employer by filing a complaint with the EEOC. The employer has the right to defend the organization using certain defenses, including a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification, or BFOQ, defense, business necessity, and job relatedness. In addition to providing defenses against discrimination claims, the 1964 Civil Rights Act identifies a situation in which organizations can be held liable for harming the employee because of retaliation.

An adverse employment action is any action such as firing, demotion, schedule reduction, or changes that would harm the individual employee. Retaliation is a form of harassment based on an individual filing a discrimination claim. The organization can also be accused of constructive discharge due to discriminatory actions on the job. Constructive discharge exists when an employee is put under such extreme pressure by management that continued employment becomes intolerable, and, as a result, the employee quits or resigns from the organization.

In a Supreme Court decision in 2004, the court noted that the US Court of Appeals had identified constructive discharge as the following-- first, suffering harassment or discrimination so intolerable that a reasonable person would have felt compelled to resign, second, the employee's reaction to the workplace situation was reasonable given the circumstances. Every employer or manager needs to understand this concept.

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