Job Bias Charges Hit Record As Economy Struggled

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said that job bias claims reached a record in its fiscal year which ended last September. As evidence, the agency said reports by workers “hit an unprecedented level of 99,922.”

“According to the FY 2010 data, all major categories of charge filings in the private sector (which include charges filed against state and local governments) increased,” the EEOC reported. The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination.

The report does little to illuminate why claims rose. It is likely that the trend had to do with the economy.

More Americans were pushed out of jobs last year than in any year with the exception of 2009. Job bias issues probably well surpassed the 99,992 complaints filed last year. The level reported is unlikely to be explained by a surge in discrimination. People who want to retain their jobs probably have become more sensitive to real incidences of bias just as they are more sensitive about the future of their work status.

Federal agencies show little interest in the causes of the problems highlighted in reports about employment data. That is a mistake. Issues that go unexamined can rarely be cut down at their real sources.

Employment discrimination remains a scourge of the workplace even as civil rights legislation and American attitudes toward matter of race, color, and creed have  liberalized. The liberalization. though, does not mean that discrimination does not still lurk in the shadows.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission could do a better job of fulfilling its underlying mandate if it bothered to consider why discrimination is not closer to elimination. A problem unexplored is one that will not go away.

Douglas A. McIntyre