Heidi Alexander: “last week I released a staff report that found litigation missteps at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are…”

“last week I released a staff report that found litigation missteps at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are costing taxpayers millions, while at the same time EEOC faces a deep backlog of discrimination complaints. The report finds that the EEOC has had a recent pattern of pursuing questionable cases through sometimes overly aggressive means and as a result has suffered significant court losses that are embarrassing to the agency and costly to taxpayers. Courts have found EEOC's litigation tactics to be so egregious they have ordered EEOC to pay defendants' attorney's fees in 10 cases since 2011. The courts have criticized EEOC for misuse of its authority, poor expert analysis, and pursuit of novel cases unsupported by law. While the agency has pursued high-profile lawsuits without a complainant, in March 2014 EEOC reported almost 71,000 unresolved complaints of discrimination from individuals who filed charges. The agency's litigation has recovered almost $200 million less for victims than under the previous administration over the same timeframe. The report finds that EEOC also has suffered from a troubling lack of transparency. In the past 2\1/2\ years, EEOC has ignored calls from current Commissioners and Congress to allow public review of significant and controversial guidance prior to its adoption.…”