EEOC’s Budget Should Be Cut to Protect Free Speech and Jobs

By Hans Bader | March 3, 2017

Congress should cut the budget of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Doing so will help the economy and protect civil liberties. As legal scholars and journalists have noted, the EEOC’s actions have often discouraged hiring and undermined free speech.

Under the Obama administration, the EEOC sued employers for using hiring criteria required by state law, demanding that they violate health and safety codes. It even pressured employers to hire felons as armed guards. The EEOC sued companies that quite reasonably refuse to employ truck drivers with a history of heavy drinking, even though companies that hire them will be sued under state personal-injury laws when they have an accident.

The EEOC has also used costly lawsuits to pressure businesses into hiring or rehiring incompetent employees. In 2011, a hotel chain had to pay $132,500 for dismissing an autistic clerk who did not do his job properly, in order to get the EEOC to dismiss its lawsuit. In 2012, a café owner had to pay thousands of dollars for not selecting a hearing- and speech-impaired employee for a customer-service position that the employee was unqualified for......To Read More......

My Take - Among those agencies that should be eliminated - the EEOC is among the top, and should be dumped - just like the Labor Department.