EEOC Kicks Off 2013 Settling Sex Harassment And Retaliation Lawsuits

As we blogged about here previously, in the EEOC’s first draft of its Strategic Enforcement Plan, the Commission telegraphed that it was increasingly focused on preventing, and when necessary, litigating workplace harassment and retaliation allegations. The EEOC’s warning was no bluff, for in 2012 the EEOC filed a significant amount of harassment and retaliation lawsuits (discussed here, here, and here). The EEOC kicked off 2013 by entering a series of consent decrees resolving allegations of retaliation. One week after we blogged about the EEOC’s rash of retaliation settlements, Judge Kocoras of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois approved a consent decree in EEOC v. South Loop Club, Case No. 12-CV-07677 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 6, 2013), resolving allegations of sex harassment and retaliation. As we predicted in our EEOC-Initiated Litigation book, the EEOC’s SEP is functioning as the blueprint for the Commission’s enforcement activity. The recent consent decree in EEOC v. South Loop Club signals that the EEOC continues to vigorously pursue its stated “big six” agenda items enunciated in its SEP.

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