Some commentators would have it that employers can stay out of legal trouble if they just resolve not to discriminate. But the federal agency in charge of these matters, which must count as about as much of an expert as anyone, itself can’t seem to avoid getting sued. The complaint charges disability discrimination and retaliation. [WSJ Law Blog]
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Back during Justice Clarence Thomas’s term as Chairman of the EEOC, a Labor and Employment Law Committee I chaired for the American Retail Federation (now the National Retail Federation) invited him to be a guest speaker at a meeting in Williamsburg, VA. After his speech I was privileged to spend an hour or more chatting with him while he waited for his transportation. During the course of his conversation with me, Justice Thomas complained somewhat bitterly how much of his time was being consumed by depositions in specious EEO complaints that had been filed against the agency by its staff. I was able to commiserate with him, explaining that my employer, the F. W. Woolworth Co., had many, many hours of executive time similarly eaten up in defense of meretricious charges, and we both agreed that an unintended consequence of the otherwise altruistic Civil Rights Act was the extraordinary burden imposed upon our legal system by the many trying to game the system.