EEOC Releases 2017 Data

By Kamer Zucker Abbott

February 16, 2018

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has recently released its 2017 Enforcement and Litigation Data that can be helpful to employers looking for the bigger picture.

The EEOC's data shows that 84,254 workplace discrimination charges were filed with the EEOC during fiscal year 2017.  This is a decrease in charges from fiscal year 2016, during which 91,503 charges were filed.

The 2017 data show that 48.8 percent of all charges filed involved some type of retaliation allegation, and that race (33.9 percent), disability (31.9 percent) and sex discrimination (30.4 percent) were the next most frequent charge allegations.   A comparison of this data over the years of 1997 through 2017 shows that 2017 marks the highest percentage of retaliation and disability charges filed with the EEOC, while the number of race charges filed was at the lowest percentage seen since 2012.

The EEOC also provides a breakdown of charges by state.

Finally, the EEOC's legal staff filed 184 lawsuits alleging discrimination in fiscal year 2017.  This number included 124 individual lawsuits, 30 lawsuits involving multiple victims or discriminatory policies, and 30 systemic discrimination cases.