Protecting civil rights, still

Journalist Diane Solis wrote in the Dallas Morning News today (free subscription may be required — and its dated, so hurry) about a continuing need for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), one of the most maligned federal agencies. When I staffed the Senate Labor Committee the commission was subject to a long-term investigation of its activities.

EEOC in litigated 400 cases in 2005, but it handled 75,000 complaints. Among the incidents Solis writes about:

In May, a judge ruled that 52 Indian nationals were held in lockdown by an armed guard, subjected to food rationing and paid well below the minimum wage at the John Pickle Co. in Oklahoma. The award: $1.24 million.

In March, a court heard the case of a black man who was harassed by fellow workers and restrained as they tightened a noose around his neck at Commercial Coating Service Inc. in Texas. The award: $1 million.

The long fight for civil rights continues, too.