The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued an advance notice of proposed rulemaking (ANPRM) on the equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaint process in the federal sector.  The ANPRM, which has been coordinated with other federal agencies, is published in the Federal Register. 

The ANPRM signals the first public comprehensive review of the federal sector EEO complaint process undertaken by the EEOC in several decades.  The ANPRM contains a series of questions intended to encourage new thinking about the federal sector process. 

The EEOC became responsible for the federal sector EEO complaint process in 1979 when it inherited a complaint process from the Civil Service Commission (CSC).  Through rulemaking over the past decades, the EEOC has enhanced the process it inherited.  Although EEOC has revised the procedures a number of times, the original structure inherited from the CSC—counseling, complaint, investigation, hearing, final agency action, and appeal—remains. The EEOC is interested in hearing from the public whether the current process can be improved, and if so, whether far-reaching reforms are necessary or whether the process requires only a modest fine-tuning.