EEO

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) is the legal framework prohibiting employment discrimination based on protected characteristics — race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age (40+), disability, and genetic information under federal law, with additional protections under state and local laws. EEO compliance requires not just the absence of explicit discriminatory policies but vigilance against disparate impact: facially neutral employment practices that disproportionately screen out protected class members without business necessity are unlawful regardless of discriminatory intent. Practical EEO management means auditing selection rates, promotion rates, and termination rates by protected class, identifying processes with statistically significant disparate impact, and either eliminating those processes or demonstrating their job-relatedness and business necessity.