Companies are barred from discriminating against workers on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, age, or disability. If a company is in this category, it faced allegations of discriminating against an employee and was fined or reached a settlement.
Sources
Violation Tracker contains more than 3,700 entries on employment discrimination cases dating back to 2000 with over $5 billion in penalties. Nearly two-thirds of these were handled by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) brought over 500 cases against contractors accused of discriminatory employment practices. About 150 come from the Justice Department Civil Rights Division (not including the cases it handles concerning discrimination outside of the workplace).
Only one-tenth of entries come from state and local regulatory agencies. The majority of these cases are brought by state civil rights commissions and attorneys general. The New York City Commission on Human Rights is the only local source included in Violation Tracker, with over 100 cases.
Violation Tracker also contains more than 250 entries on major employment discrimination class action lawsuits with total settlements and awards of $3 billion.
Search Techniques
Violation Tracker offers multiple ways to locate employment discrimination cases. In the Basic Search on the homepage, you can combine a company name with one of the federal agencies mentioned above in the Federal Regulatory Agency dropdown. Since employment discrimination is an offense type housed within the broader employment-related offense group, searching by offense group here will not yield many cases related to discrimination.
The best way to access employment discrimination cases is through the Advanced Search page. Here you can combine a company name and/or other variables with the employment discrimination choice in the Offense Type dropdown. In that dropdown you can either choose employment discrimination to get all cases in this category or choose from various specific types of discrimination to narrow your search (you can choose multiple types at once). These include discrimination related to: age, gender, race, religion, disability, pregnancy, national origin, sexual orientation and sexual harassment. You can also search for specific laws within the Offense Type dropdown, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, Equal Pay Act, Family and Medical Leave Act, and Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The Full Text search box can be used to search discrimination-related words or phrases mentioned in the description field of the individual entries. Use the Level of Government dropdown to limit your search to federal, state or local cases.
On the Summaries page you can retrieve an overview of all employment cases (not just discrimination) from the Offense Group Summaries dropdown. You can also find such overviews for the EEOC or other agencies from the Federal Agency Summaries or State/Local Agency Summaries dropdowns. The Current Parent Summaries include breakdowns by offense categories, including employment discrimination.
To locate employment discrimination class action or multi-district lawsuits, go to the Advanced Search and choose private litigation from the Action Type dropdown and the employment discrimination choice in the Offense Type dropdown. Private litigation entries include full case citations. Violation Tracker subscribers also have access to key court documents such as settlement agreements.
If you still have questions on how to use Violation Tracker, contact Siobhan Standaert at [email protected].
Last updated March 2024
