EEOC Criticized for Major Policy Change : Reports Contend Fewer Discrimination Victims Receive Awards

Two government reports harshly criticize a major policy shift by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that bans the use of goals and timetables in hiring agreements between the agency and employers, it was learned Monday.

In the reports, by the House Education and Labor Committee and the General Accounting Office, investigators interviewed officials in field offices nationwide, including Los Angeles, and found that the new policies often delay processing of cases involving minorities and women and cut the amount of money awarded to victims of discrimination.

The EEOC was established by the 1964 Civil Rights Act and enforces federal laws against job discrimination based on race, sex, age and physical handicap.

Reports Add to Criticism

The committee report is far more comprehensive and critical than the GAO study but, taken together, they add substantially to the mounting criticism that the EEOC is losing its effectiveness amid heavy caseloads and philosophical bickering that centers on the Reagan Administration’s opposition to numerical targets as a way to remedy job discrimination.

The panel report notes that, “in the absence of a commission vote,” Johnny Butler, acting general counsel of the EEOC, instructed the agency’s legal staff not to use goals and timetables when negotiating agreements with employers. His action “arguably constitutes abuse” of his authority under federal statutes, the report charged.

Butler issued the order orally last year and confirmed the action during a congressional hearing earlier this month.

In an interview Monday, Butler defended the policy shift and denied that he abused his authority. He said that court decisions allow the use of such goals and timetables but that “none of these cases say it is constitutionally mandated.”

Approach Called Piecemeal

However, the committee’s 100-page report said that Butler’s directive “flies in the face of earlier positions taken by the EEOC . . . in defense of goals and timetables” and that it “conflicts with the EEOC’s current affirmative action guidelines.”

In addition, the report takes issue with the EEOC’s move away from class-action suits in favor of individual victims, asserting that it is “inadequate” to provide relief for “only a few identified victims” when discriminatory practices are widespread in an organization.

The result of this piecemeal approach, the report said, is a dramatic drop in the number of victims who receive financial compensation. In the first half of 1985, it added, only 2,964 persons were compensated through EEOC cases, compared with 15,328 in 1980.

An EEOC spokesman dismissed the significance of the statistics, saying that “those numbers go up and down every year.”

Activists Voice Outrage

Civil rights activists voiced outrage at the EEOC’s policy shift. Barry Goldstein, assistant counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Monday accused the EEOC of “not representing the interests of minorities and women” because it “abandoned the effective relief” of goals and timetables.

Education and Labor Committee Chairman Augustus F. Hawkins (D-Los Angeles) said he hopes that the report, which has not been released, will push the EEOC “to comply fully with the law. If it fails to do so, we will pursue other actions, including court remedies.”

In addition to Los Angeles, the committee staff conducted its research at field offices in New York, St. Louis, Chicago, Houston and Birmingham, Ala.