Catherwood LibraryILR School

In a twenty-seven-page report released last month the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found the U.S. Department of Agriculture's internal process for handling discrimination and harassment complaints to be systemically flawed. The review criticized the USDA---which has a decades-old record of complaints about widespread discrimination against minority employees and clients---for taking 108 days longer, on average, to decide whether to investigate discrimination complaints than the government as a whole. The USDA was also criticized for the potential conflicts of interest created by connections between the departmental office investigating complaints and the office defending the department against complaints, as well as for ineffective case tracking, a poorly run arbitration system, and other deficiencies.