Congressional Correspondence: EEOC Directive MD 715 October 27, 2003

The following letter was sent to all member of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and all members of the House Government Reform Committee regarding CEC's opposition to those portions of EEOC Directive MD 715, directing agencies to maintain a record of complainant and "involved" management officials names in connection with allegations of discrimination. CEC is opposed to such record-keeping on the basis that it is not necessary for case tracking purposes or analysis and "will only result in managers whose names appear more than once being unfairly branded as a discriminating official without due process of law."


Dear [Reprentative Name]:

The Coalition for Effective Change (CEC) was founded in 1993 by associations of federal executives, professionals, and managers who were concerned about effectively maintaining civil service principles and sound management practices while improving the efficiency and quality of government operations. The Coalition wishes to express its concern to the authorizing committees in Congress about a recent issuance of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that will require federal agencies to develop and maintain master lists of all employees in the agency who have filed Equal Employment Opportunity complaints and all management officials who are "involved" with the allegations in the complaint. The issuance, Management Directive 715 (MD-715), took effect October 1, 2003, and according to the EEOC, the agency is in the process of developing implementing regulations. We believe the EEOC's new requirement is sweeping, unwise, unnecessary and potentially harmful to the reputations and careers of both complainants and managers because of unfair and unwarranted conclusions and inferences that may result simply because someone's name is on the list.

CEC opposed a similar effort three years ago to develop a government-wide list of complainants and accused managers. That effort was eventually abandoned.

MD-715 is a new issuance on EEO complaint processing. Most of the directive is non-controversial and is needed. The part we object to concerns a case tracking system and is as follows:

II. Essential Elements of Model Agency Title VII and Rehabilitation Act Programs

E. Efficiency "Use a complaint tracking and monitoring system that permits the agency to identify the location, status, and length of time elapsed at each stage of the agency's complaint resolution process, the issues and the bases of the complaints, the aggrieved individuals/complainants, the involved management officials and other information necessary to analyze complaint activity and identify trends."

While we agree that case tracking is both necessary and appropriate, we contend that it can be accomplished by simply keeping a master list of case numbers. No reason exists to keep a master list of complainants unless management wants to identify chronic complainers. Doing so is unfair to the employee who is supposed to have his or her complaint judged on the merits after an investigation or hearing. Keeping a master list of management officials supposedly to identify trends will only result in managers whose names appear more than once being unfairly branded as a discriminating official without due process of law.

We are also concerned about the possible future uses of such a master list. The existence of the requirement that the list be maintained increases the possibility that it will be disclosed outside the agency to the media or to Congress. It may then be the subject of discovery requests in future litigation. Obviously such uses go far beyond the original intended use of a case tracking system.

We oppose this master list of names of federal employees who file complaints or are accused in the complaint process. We seek your assistance in convincing the EEOC to modify the requirements of a case tracking system so that agencies may not keep master lists of employees' names who file complaints or who are accused. If the EEOC does not do this, we request that you consider a legislative solution that protects the privacy, reputations and due process of the federal employees who use the federal sector EEO complaint process and those managers who are accused of wrongdoing merely because a complaint is filed.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Rosslyn Kleeman
Chair

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