EEOC Update: The Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) Fiscal Years 2024–2028
March 25, 2024
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has announced its new Strategic Enforcement Plan for 2024 through 2028. “The SEP will help guide the EEOC’s work through all of the agency’s activities, including outreach, public education, technical assistance, enforcement, and litigation . . . with the goal of positively influencing employer practices and promoting legal compliance.”
The EEOC’s new SEP will focus on harassment, retaliation, job segregation, labor trafficking, wage discrimination, disparate working conditions, and other practices that impact vulnerable workers and those from underserved communities. With respect to employment discrimination, the Commission views the category of vulnerable workers as including:
- People with limited literacy or English proficiency
- Immigrant, migrant, and temporary workers
- Individuals with developmental, intellectual, or mental health–related disabilities
- LGBTQI+ individuals
- Those with arrest or conviction records
- Older workers
- Low-wage and teenage workers
- Survivors of gender-based violence
- Native Americans/Alaska Natives
The EEOC’s new Strategic Enforcement Plan focuses on:
- Addressing policies and practices that limit access to on-the-job training, pre-apprenticeship or apprenticeship programs, temp-to-hire positions, internships, or other job training or advancement opportunities based on protected status.
- The use of technology that contributes to discrimination based on a protected characteristic. These may include, for example, the use of software that incorporates algorithmic decision-making or machine learning, including artificial intelligence; use of automated recruitment, selection, or production and performance management tools; or other existing or emerging technological tools used in employment decisions.
- Updating emerging and developing issues to include protecting workers affected by pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, including under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act; and employment discrimination associated with the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, including Long COVID.
- Overly broad waivers, releases, non-disclosure agreements, and non-disparagement agreements.
- Qualification standards and inflexible policies or practices that discriminate against people with disabilities.
- Addressing discrimination influenced by or arising as backlash in response to local, national, or global events, including discriminatory bias arising as a result of recurring historical prejudices. For example, discrimination, bias, and hate directed against religious minorities (including antisemitism and Islamophobia), racial or ethnic groups, and LGBTQI+ individuals.
“The EEOC will continue to focus on combatting systemic harassment in all forms and on all bases—including sexual harassment and harassment based on race, disability, age, national origin, religion, color, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions, gender identity, and sexual orientation) or a combination or intersection of any of these. With respect to charges and litigation, a claim by an individual or small group may fall within this priority if it is related to a widespread pattern or practice of harassment.
To combat this persistent problem, the EEOC will continue to focus on strong enforcement with appropriate monetary relief and targeted equitable relief to prevent future harassment. The EEOC will also focus on promoting comprehensive anti-harassment programs and practices. . . .”
In short, the Commission’s new SEP clarifies its mission and specifies some more current areas of concern and discrimination that it intends to spotlight. HR departments need to keep these areas in mind going forward, including the use and potential misuse of new technologies.