The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority must also enhance its nondiscrimination policies and provide advanced antidiscrimination training.

Dive Brief:

• The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority, or DC Water, must pay nearly $217,000 to settle claims of alleged age discrimination filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on behalf of a former HR professional, the agency said Wednesday.
• Per the lawsuit, in September 2023, the HR professional was replaced by a younger and allegedly less qualified employee in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. This was one of several alleged replacements of older workers in the department.
• The consent decree bars DC Water from further age discrimination and mandates that the water company create “enhanced” nondiscrimination policies, issue rights notices to its employees and provide advanced training for DC Water’s HR department involving nondiscrimination compliance.

Dive Insight:

Older employees are “too often targets of unfounded or stereotyped assumptions, from lack of tech savvy to slower pace of work,” Debra Lawrence, EEOC regional attorney for the Philadelphia District, said in a statement Wednesday.

EEOC regularly enforces the ADEA, and firing a worker or a failure to hire a candidate due to age is a common thread in such lawsuits. In April, a technology consulting company settled an age-related dispute with the agency after EEOC alleged a sales director called an interviewee “...

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