EEOC Takes New Approach to Fighting Racism and Colorism in the 21st Century Workplace
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
recently launched a national initiative to bring a
fresh, 21st century approach to combating racism, which
remains the most frequent claim filed with the agency. EEOC
Chair Naomi C. Earp unveiled the initiative, E-RACE
(Eradicating Racism and Colorism from Employment),
during a public meeting at agency headquarters that
featured panels of experts and victims.
E-RACE is an outreach, education, and enforcement
campaign to advance the statutory right to a workplace
free of race and color discrimination. Under E-RACE,
the EEOC will identify specific issues, criteria and
barriers that contribute to race and color
discrimination; explore strategies to improve the
administrative processing and litigation of race and
color cases; and enhance public awareness of race and
color discrimination in employment.
“By rolling out the E-RACE Initiative, the Commission is
taking a new approach to eradicating racism and colorism
in the workplace,” Chair Earp said. “New times demand
new strategies to stay ahead of the curve. These old
evils are still around in new forms and we intend to act
vigorously to eradicate them.”
The EEOC will combine the objectives of E-RACE with
existing Commission initiatives. For example, the
agency will integrate the goals of the Systemic
Initiative by addressing race and color issues with
class and systemic implications; incorporate the
principles of the Youth@Work Initiative by combating
disparate treatment of youth based on race and color;
and complement the outreach and enforcement efforts of
the LEAD Initiative by challenging exclusionary
employment policies that target certain disabilities and
may adversely impact people of color. The Commission
will also strengthen partnerships with employee
advocates, state and local human rights commissions,
human resource professionals, and employer groups to
address race and color discrimination in the workplace.
Participants at today’s Commission meeting presented a
broad range of perspectives on race and color
discrimination, including the impact of recent
demographic shifts, advances in technology, and changes
in corporate America. In addition to EEOC regional
attorneys and victims from recent cases, the Commission
heard from private attorneys, business consultants, and
members of academia.
In Fiscal Year 2006, the EEOC received 27,238 charges
alleging race-based discrimination, accounting for 36
percent of the agency’s private sector caseload.
Historically, race-based charges have been the most
frequent type of filing with EEOC offices nationwide.
The EEOC has also observed a substantial increase over
the past 15 years in discrimination charge filings based
on color, which have risen from 374 in FY 1992 to 1,241
in FY 2006. Additionally, recent studies show that some
employers make selection decisions based on names,
arrest and conviction records, employment and
personality tests and credit scores -- all of which may
disparately impact people of color.
Beejey Enriquez, a Filipino discrimination victim from a
recent case litigated by the EEOC’s San Francisco
District Office, recounted how he was targeted for
dismissal by his employer due to his race and ethnicity
– despite his qualifications and special recognition by
his company. “Now I was just a checkbox to eliminate,”
he said. “I was almost embarrassed to be who I was. I
don’t want anyone else to be ashamed of who they are, or
who their parents and grandparents are.”
EEOC San Francisco Regional Attorney William Tamayo
said, “The E-RACE Initiative urges us to understand and
address the multifaceted and complex nature of racism in
the 21st century so that discrimination doesn’t rob our
nation of the contributions that a diverse population
can make.”
