The following article first appeared in the Insights section of Littler Mendelson’s website. It is reposted here with permission.
Employers responding to discrimination charges filed with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission may soon face significantly shorter deadlines, according to reports of an upcoming nationwide procedural change.
While the agency has not yet publicly released the policy, the expected changes could dramatically affect how employers and counsel respond to EEOC investigations.
Under current practice, employers generally have 30 days to submit a position statement, which is a written response explaining the company’s position regarding the allegations in a Charge of Discrimination.
Although extensions have become more difficult to obtain in recent years, EEOC offices have often granted additional time when warranted by circumstances and an employer has been working in good faith to respond as soon as possible.
We have learned that the EEOC is soon expected to reduce the standard response period from 30 days to 15 days and adopt a much more restrictive approach to extension requests; in fact, we have already seen these new deadlines in recent requests for position statements.
Employers may attempt to request an extension of this 15-day period, but our understanding is that these requests may be denied or any additional time granted will be very limited.
These changes are expected to be agency wide. If implemented, employers could have...
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