Discrimination in hiring unfairly excludes minorities and women from earning a reasonable wage with which to sustain their families. Since 1998 the Project has focused in particular on hiring discrimination cases. For example, in 2000, the Project obtained a precedent of national significance: that testers have standing to sue for employment discrimination, even where the testers themselves did not seek employment. In early 2005 the Project won a victory in a race/hiring discrimination case against the City of Chicago. In that case EOP represents a class of almost seven thousand African Americans who passed the Chicago Fire Department’s 1995 written entry level examination but who were not considered for hire. The federal judge determined that the entry level firefighter exam was not job related and disproportionately excluded African Americans from these valuable jobs. For information on the Lewis Firefighter case, please see the latest developments page.
EOP also litigates post-hire discrimination cases, and is actively pursuing, for example, cases challenging sexual and racial harassment, discrimination in pay, promotion, and termination. EOP also provides pro bono representation to low income workers with meritorious discrimination claims in federal court settlement conferences and in EEOC mediations.
At the request of the United States District Court for the Northern District, EOP assists attorneys assigned under the court’s Pro Bono Program to represent low income plaintiffs in employment discrimination cases, trains these attorneys on employment discrimination law, and provides them with employment discrimination litigation manuals.
Click here if you would like a copy of these manuals.
EOP also works with the federal and state agencies which enforce the employment discrimination laws to improve their procedures and enforcement efforts. For example, in 2006 EOP persuaded the Illinois Department of Human Rights to redact the names of workers who sue for arrest record discrimination from the IDHR’s published opinions. The IDHR’s publication of the workers’ names and the details of their arrests had deterred workers from complaining of arrest record discrimination.
EOP also represents victims of domestic/sexual violence who are experiencing workplace discrimination under an Illinois law, the Victims Economic Security & Safety Act (VESSA). VESSA requires that employers with 50 or more workers provide unpaid leave and accommodate workers who are experiencing domestic or sexual violence. For more information on VESSA, click here to view our 
VESSA manual (784 KB) (784 KB).
For more information, please contact Laurie Wardell at lwardell@clccrul.org or 312-630-9744.