By Christopher Warburton.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was legislated, among other things, to provide equal opportunity for all workers. This means that supervisors and co-workers should leave their unwanted prejudices at home before they get to their places of work. Employers must ensure that their work environments are free from hostility and discrimination, especially if they are receiving federal dollars.
Civil rights complaints about employment discrimination are generally filed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the EEOC is obligated to ensure that all employers adhere to the provisions of the Act for the sake of creating equal employment opportunity for their workers on the basis of race, gender, age, national origin, religious affiliation, and sexual orientation.
In the Dark Ages of the 1950s and 1960s in the US, blacks were discriminated against and deprived of employment opportunities. The practice of discrimination is still going on in the twenty-first century Cyber Age. That is, unwanted vestiges of the Dark Ages are with us in the Cyber Age. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is intended to criminalize and discourage practices that make it impossible for workers to work in peaceful and nondiscriminatory work environments.
Employees who have been offended because of violations of the law have a right to notify their employers about the violations. Serious law-abiding employers will take such complaints seriously and investigate the merits of the complaints. They will not try to pretend that they have conducted an investigation when they have recklessly and negligently handled the complaints and failed to investigate them. That is, they should not try to sweep civil rights violations under the proverbial rug and hope that the infractions will go away quietly into the dark without any notice or publicity. Alternatively, they should not try to wrongfully terminate workers who face collective hostility in the workplace because they have complained about pervasive hostility and employment improprieties in their places of work.
Those who complain about harassment and discrimination on the job must be protected against retaliation. That is, they should not be exposed to circumstances under which they will suffer economic and psychological harm just because they have reported a criminal behavior in their places of work. When employees are wrongfully terminated because of racist and other prejudices in their places of work, they have a right to bring a charge against those who have caused them harm. The perpetrators are usually people who still imagine that they live in the Dark Ages and who go to work with their racist attire at home to project good optics and engage in deceptive practices.
When complaints about violations of civil rights are brought to the attention of the EEOC, the EEOC is obligated to properly investigate the complaints in order to ascertain whether or not the relevant provisions of the Civil Rights Act have been violated. The EEOC personnel are not expected to: (a) collude with employers, (b) engage in bribery and corruption, (c) report that there is no probable cause for investigating complaints based on corrupt practices and (d) issue a “determination and order after investigation” when they have not conducted an investigation, or have conducted a criminal and negligent investigation for compensation or overtime pay.
For sixteen years, EEOC data reveal the following inter alia: (a) the amount of complaints that were filed (receipts), (b) the amount of complaints with probable cause (complaints for which there is prima facie evidence that wrongdoing took place), (c) those without probable cause (complaints that did not require the EEOC to launch any investigation because they did not pass the smell test), (d) merit resolution (charges with outcomes that were favorable to the charging parties), and (e) settlements.
Accordingly, if 96 percent of discrimination complaints were thrown out without any investigation since 1997, the EEOC is explicitly telling us that 96 percent of the people who complained (thousands of people) were crazy or they did not know what they were complaining about. By algebraic definition, this means that only about 4 percent of the cases required sham investigations. This is something that should alarm every civilized human being with a moral conscience because it is unconscionable. Technically, 100 percent of the complaints are not treated seriously. Apparently, the white collar criminals have no conscience. It should behoove people of conscience and policy makers to ask a very fundamental question: Why should an agency of such enormous responsibility and importance be so corrupt and worthless enough to sabotage the prosperity of the US economy?
Unless the EEOC officials are corrupt and incompetent, they should be able to pointedly investigate what they have been asked to investigate. They should be able to count and classify things appropriately. For example, they should know that publications about red imported fire ants are not in the same category as publications about exchange rates and market failure. More so, they should not deliberately mix up apples and oranges or manufacture evidence for the sake of arriving at premeditated or a priori conclusions.
Beyond the investigative stage, between 1997 and 2013, the range of merit resolution by the EEOC is between 8.3 % (in 1997) and 20% (in 2007). That is, cases that survived the haphazard investigations gained a “successful” high watermark of 20 percent in 2007 (seven years ago). The merit resolutions include negotiated settlements, withdrawals with benefits, successful conciliations, and unsuccessful conciliations.
Remarkably, it is no surprise that the rate of minority unemployment is comparatively very high. Thanks to the EEOC, thousands of minorities have been thrown out of work. The EEOC is part of the unemployment problem in the US. While policy makers are fast asleep, the level of minority unemployment and the contributions of the EEOC to the astoundingly high level of minority unemployment are unmistakable.
Policy makers who are serious about reducing the level of minority unemployment must first summon the courage to purge the white collar criminals who are contributing to the high levels of unemployment and underemployment among minorities out of the EEOC.
Alternatively, minority voters should know that policy makers who tolerate the criminal conduct of the EEOC officials are directly endangering their welfare. It is time for the EEOC white collar criminals to face justice just like the conventional criminals who have not necessarily caused comparable economic and social harm to the US. The white collar criminals must be purged, tried, and incarcerated (if guilty) like every other criminal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is endangered and in need of expeditious redemption.
