Thursday, January 28, 2021
announced that it had concluded its mediation pilot program.
The announcement, issued on January 27, 2021, referred to the mediation pilot as a “six-month” pilot program announced in July 2020. The press release did not acknowledge that only three weeks earlier, on January 6, 2021, the agency issued a press release stating the EEOC’s mediation pilot had been extended through September 30, 2021.
The EEOC’s mediation pilot had expanded categories of charges eligible for mediation in July 2020. (For details, see our article,
EEOC Looks to Increase Early Resolutions With Pilot Conciliation, Mediation Programs.) Historically, EEOC mediations were limited to the very early stages of the EEOC process, and EEOC enforcement personnel could keep a charge from mediation after determining the charge raised issues of class or systemic discrimination or raised novel claims. In the pilot program, the EEOC promised to send a charge to the mediation unit at any point in the administrative process. The pilot worked with a short list of mediation exceptions: charges that had no merit, Commissioner charges, and charges where the EEOC decided a party’s interest would not be well-served by mediation.