The Republican members of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (“HELP”) Committee recently released its study of the EEOC, and the results aren’t pretty for the Agency. The study blasts the EEOC for “litigation missteps”, wasting millions in taxpayer dollars on dubious litigation claims, an extraordinary and unacceptable backlog of pending charges, unduly aggressive litigation tactics, abuse of its authority, shoddy expert witness analysis in support of questionable cases, pursuit of cases based on wild theories, lack of transparency, and more. The study points to at least ten cases in which the EEOC was hit with monetary sanctions since 2011, including one case in which the Agency was ordered to pay an employer/defendant over $750,000.00 in attorneys’ fees, expert witness fees, and litigation costs for pursuing litigation it knew to be frivolous.

If all this sounds painfully familiar, it’s because we’ve been blogging on these very same themes since the inception of this blog (EEOC related blogs posts) It’s nice to see that at least the GOP members of the HELP Committee have finally reached our conclusions. It’s a pity that the EEOC has chosen to deny, deny, deny, rather than accept responsibility and institute reforms. Of course, that may change in January with the new GOP-controlled Congress.