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Title VII and the Executive Order have their own unique advantages for achieving equal employment opportunity. If each agency makes full use of its individual advantages under its separate authorities, an automatic result will be a more complementary and mutually supportive relationship in the Federal EEO enforcement effort.

For the most part EEOC is a complaint oriented agency whose mission is to investigate and conciliate or enforce charges of discrimination.

Although the

agency has authority to initiate pattern or practice suits its activities in that regard have been rather insubstantial. However, as the agency expands its

capability to initiate Commissioner's charges and pattern or practices suits it can rely heavily on data and information from Executive Order compliance review reports and affirmative action programs to facilitate successful litigation. Such litigation can be of great

It has not been established that complainants have a private right of action under the Executive Order. Therefore, the Office Federal Contract Compliance Program is less suitable as a complaint handling agency and should continue to rely on compliance reviews as its primary enforcement tool and direct its focus toward systemic issues. Where such systemic problems do not involve relief in the form of backpay and related remedies, appropriate resolutions may be achieved through the affirmative action goals, timetables, and procedural obligations without the necessity of a finding of discrimination and, for the most part, outside the context of formal proceedings. Where remedial relief for identifiable victims of discrimination is a significant aspect of the solution to systemic problems the administrative hearing process under the Executive Order is more expeditious than the judicial enforcement process under Title VII, particularly when the issues involved relate to questions of fact. On the other hand, a judicial proceeding may be more suitable for resolving novel and unsettled EEO legal issues.

B. Problems and Recommendations

Aside from failures relating to past leadership, the principal stumbling block to the development of a

two agencies has been the fact that until recently the Executive Order Program has concentrated almost exclusively on affirmative action program goals, timetables, and procedures with very little attention given to identifying and providing remedial relief for victims of systemic discrimination. An agreement by EEOC and

OFCCP to codify standards for investigating, proving, and remedying discrimination and to afford recognition to compliance decisions and settlements made on the basis of such standards would constitute the foundation from which that objective should be achieved.

With the codification of jointly recognized standards the objective of maximizing the total Federal EEO enforcement effort and avoiding conflict, competition, duplication, and inconsistency becomes almost exclusively a matter of target selection. The two agencies could routinely:

1. share tentative forecast schedules up

to 12 months in advance of actual target selections for compliance reviews, complaint investigations, and the initiation of court suits and sanction proceedings,

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under the Executive Order would be referred to EEOC and

treated as charges under Title VII. In return, however, OFCCP would investigate and seek to dispose of all charges of systemic discrimination pending under title VII against each contractor scheduled for a compliance review under the Order. Since such charges would be also considered as complaints filed under Title VII the charging parties would not forfeit their right of private action. Further, since the Executive Order disposition would be based upon jointly recognized standards of investigation, proof, and remedy the compliance decision or settlement would receive the concurrence of EEOC just as if the charge had been pursued by the

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