While the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) was formally created in 1964 with the passage of the Civil Rights Act — it had existed before — for a brief time between 1941–1946. Known as the Fair Employment Practices Commission (“FEPC”), the precursor to the modern-day EEOC was a creation of then President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in response to Civil Rights advocates seeking greater access to the booming war-time economy.
During its short tenure, the commission managed to triple ¹ the number of African-Americans employed in war-time industries, while at the same time, raising wages by 380%. ² Nearly every other sector of the economy the agency regulated saw substantial increases in Black employment. On average, the commission resolved 40% of their complaints favorably. ³ Such success did not go unnoticed. Shortly after having secured economic gains for Black Americans, Segregationist members of the House and Senate began to attack the commission by introducing a flurry of legislative measures to abolish, if not only to have the commission weakened.⁴ Nearly all of these measures were deflected by Roosevelt, allowing the commission to operate for some time far from the reach of powerful members of the House and Senate.
Out-maneuvering FDR, these members of Congress eventually secured not only power over the commission, but a seat on it’s committee. Subsequently, the commission’s budget was slashed in half and by 1946, it had ceased to exist. In the intervening period between the dismantling of FEPC and the creation of the EEOC, many African-Americans lived in a state of economic-limbo, in which discrimination was not only the law of the land, but without any recourse to challenge it.
Today, the EEOC is very much on the same exact historical trajectory as its precursor. In the commission’s most recent budget request, the agency made the grim projection that by 2023, it would be forced to lay off 50 Civil Rights Investigators, 25 Attorneys and 19 Mediators. All of this is on top of a budget that has been stagnant for over 40+ years and consistent shrinkage in the agencies workforce of 10% per decade. To complicate matters, nearly half (47%) of investigators at the agency are over the age of 50, with all them being eligible to retire by the year 2033.⁵ Combined with a foreseeable stagnant budget, the EEOC will not be able to replace them. In time, the agency will be hit with a tsunami of retirements and a workload that it won’t be able to manage. Considering these trends, and projecting the agency’s future, the EEOC will cease to ‘functionally’ exist by the year 2033.
Footnotes:
1. “…Enforcement of the order led to some positive changes for African Americans. By the end of World War II, in 1945, African Americans held 8 percent of the jobs in the defense industry, up from 3 percent before the war”
2. See page 74; see figures for non-white families and individuals. Difference between $531 and $2,021 is about an increase of ~380%.
3. “…In its first year and a half, the second FEPC docketed close to 6,000 discrimination complaints (those that FEPC investigators decided had merit) and resolved nearly 40 percent satisfactorily”. Records are based on surviving microfilm copies held by Cornell University.
4. For full history on the dismantling of FEPC, see “FEPC: A Case History in Parliamentary Maneuver”.
5. See OPM FedScope; Select Agency > Large Independent Agency > Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. From here, hit the ‘Next’ button near the top right hand side, navigate to Occupation > White Collar > Investigation > Equal Opportunity Investigator. Filter by age category.
