Oppose Senator Alexander’s Amendment 766 to Budget Resolution: Vote Against Cuts to EEOC

Recipient: U.S. Senate

Dear Senator:

On behalf of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR), the nation’s oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition, representing more than 200 member organizations, we urge you to vote against Senator Lamar Alexander’s Amendment 766 to the Senate Budget Resolution, and any similar amendments. Amendment 766 would slash $670,000 from the EEOC’s budget to prevent the EEOC from litigating against businesses with English-only polices for their workers. The amendment would unfairly diminish the EEOC’s ability to protect workers from discrimination on the basis of national origin. Further, by diminishing funding, the amendment would impede EEOC’s ability to investigate and litigate other forms of discrimination, such as discrimination on the basis of race, sex, age and disability.

The EEOC’s current policy for litigating against businesses with English-only policies is designed to prevent discrimination based on national origin, and allows employers to maintain English-only policies when they serve a nondiscriminatory purpose. Moreover, the amount Senator Alexander seeks to have removed from the EEOC budget is likely to affect all of the EEOC’s enforcement activities and not just its actions regarding English-only policies. Facing an enormous increase in cases last year and a large backlog of cases, the EEOC cannot afford to have money stripped from its budget.

Amendment 766 would remove critical resources from the agency charged with enforcing workplace civil rights despite the fact that the EEOC has been grossly underfunded for the last eight years. The amendment would take away an important and even-handed protection for victims of national origin discrimination, and would also deny protection to victims of all forms of discrimination by slashing the EEOC budget. We urge you to oppose this amendment or any similar amendment to the budget. If you have any questions, please contact Paul Edenfield, LCCR Counsel, at (202) 263-2852, or Nancy Zirkin, at (202) 263-2880.

Sincerely,

Wade Henderson, President & CEO
Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President