BEHOLD THE GOLDEN AGE OF DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINTS
With the House of Orange 2.0 abolishing anything remotely related to DEI, it is inevitable that some folks will think it is once again OK to discriminate, harass, retaliate, etc. against others based on race, gender, age, national origin, religion, disability, color, etc. Looking down the road, we expect not only a rapid increase in the number of violations of the various civil rights laws, but also in how grossly obvious the violators are. That is going to lead to what some, including us, will call the golden age of discrimination complaints.
Discrimination law is quite well-defined substantively and procedurally and one of the biggest problems for agencies is the threat of default judgments, i.e., where the agency is required to meet a deadline in the process, but fails without good reason. Most often that leads to EEOC declaring the employee the winner and ordering the agency to write a check, even though the agency forfeited its chance to defend its actions. We have written a few posts about the concept.
Enter the term “default judgement” into the search box at EEOC.gov and it will serve up about 150 posts about the concept.
So, with the banishment of all the DEI staff, the reduction in any EEO-related funding/staffing, and the general reduction of fed staffing, our advice is to file an EEO charge whenever you see “prima facie” evidence of one or otherwise suspect something is wrong. Then watch the calendar to see if the agency meets its deadlines. If it does not, “File, baby, file for a default judgment!” Maybe you will be the next person to get 19 years back pay and $300,000 more in compensatory damages. The odds of winning once you have established a prima facie case are far, far better than POWERBALL.
