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Treasurer Steiner Opposes Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Decision to Gut Corporate Anti-discrimination reporting
By Oregon State Treasurer,
Oregon Treasurer Elizabeth Steiner, MD called on the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to maintain corporate demographic reporting requirements that have been a bedrock of deterring discrimination in the workplace for more than 50 years.
The shift in EEOC policy would deprive investors of standardized, verifiable, and statistically reliable demographic data reporting from companies. The loss of this data would leave investors blind to material risks from discriminatory practices.
Treasurer Steiner said, “Diversity in the workplace is good for business and good for America. Companies that embrace differences in employee backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives have more capacity to innovate, reach new customers, and create value than companies that discriminate and foster cultures stifled by sameness. Once again, the federal government is weakening the foundations of American competitiveness with this attack on anti-discrimination protection.”
In her letter, Treasurer Steiner spoke to her unique personal perspective on the importance of transparent, data-driven civil rights enforcement:
“I am the 30th Treasurer of the State of Oregon and the first woman elected to that position. Furthermore, I was a young child when my father, Daniel Steiner, served as General Counsel of the EEOC from December 1967 to July 1969, a critical period during the first years of mandatory employer reporting … During his tenure, my father worked to strengthen these disclosure requirements and make them more effective and useful tools for identifying and combating employment discrimination. My father’s enforcement efforts, including the landmark Hollywood discrimination hearing in March 1969, demonstrated the power of transparency and data-driven civil rights enforcement. It is heartbreaking to see the hard work of so many like my father being undone by a Commission that is not fully staffed, on apparently political grounds and weak arguments, as it moves to eliminate the very reporting requirements that have been foundational to civil rights enforcement for six decades.”
The Oregon State Treasury manages investments for the Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund (OPERF), the Common School Fund and other funds on behalf of schools and state and local agencies. Treasury has approximately $148 billion in assets under management. OPERF is one of the largest state pension funds in the nation.