EEOC: All Present and Accounted For

By Fatima Goss Graves, Vice President for Education and Employment,
National Women's Law Center

On Wednesday, Jacqueline A. Berrien was sworn in as chair of Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and Chai Feldblum was sworn in as Commissioner to the EEOC. This is good news for the EEOC, which has been short of its required quorum of commissioners for the first time in decades. It is also good news for the country, for the President has picked stellar nominees with a deep base of experience on the issues that come before the EEOC and longstanding commitment to ensuring fairness in the workplace. But it was not an easy road. 

These nominees had been pending before the Senate since they were voted out of the Senate HELP Committee in late 2009. And on March 27, after the Senate had gone into recess, President Obama appointed fifteen executive-branch nominees who had been pending before the Senate. Berrien and Feldblum were among these, as was Victoria Lipnic (also appointed to be a Commissioner of the EEOC), who will be sworn in later in April. P. David Lopez, the nominee for General Counsel of the EEOC, was also recess-appointed and was sworn in yesterday. 

The EEOC has the critical role of being the primary enforcer of the laws that prohibit discrimination in employment decisions based on sex (including pregnancy), race, color, religion, disability and age, including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Pay Act. Its employees assist workers in filing charges, investigate those claims, and mediate and attempt to resolve the charges that are deemed meritorious. The EEOC also litigates specific charges and participates as amicus curiae in key courts of appeals cases.

The recess appointments of Berrien, Feldblum, and Lipnic will bring the EEOC back to its full complement of five Commissioners. As a result, the EEOC will now be able to begin the long overdue work of promulgating regulations and litigating cases at full strength – as well as address a serious backlog of charges.

Their recess appointments will last until the end of 2011. The nominations will remain before the Senate until their recess appointments expire, so there is still time for the Senate to do the right thing and confirm Berrien, Feldblum, and Lipnic to their full five-year terms as EEOC Chair and Commissioners.