According to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announcement yesterday, 93,277 workplace discrimination charges, the second highest level of charges ever filed with the agency, were filed in 2009. Additionally, the EEOC obtained over $376 million in monetary relief for discrimination victims in 2009.

The EEOC received a record high number of private-sector charges alleging disability, religion, and/or national origin discrimination and the second highest number of age discrimination charges on record. Discrimination charges based on race, retaliation, and sex continued to be the type of charges that were filed most frequently. (In 2009, 33,579 race discrimination charges, 33,613 retaliation charges, and 28,028 sex-based discrimination charges were filed.)

The EEOC attributed the number of filings to several possible factors, including:

• economic conditions;
• greater public access to the EEOC;
• demographic shifts and an increase in diversity in the workforce;
• an increase in employee awareness regarding their legal rights; and
• changes to the EEOC’s intake procedures that reduced the necessary steps for filing a charge.

Stuart J. Ishimaru, the EEOC’s acting chairman, doesn’t expect the high level of discrimination charges to diminish. He noted that “the Commission’s work is far from finished” and encouraged employers to “step up their efforts to foster discrimination-free and inclusive workplaces, or risk enforcement and litigation by the EEOC.”

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