Who We Serve

Our Clients

Our clients are victims of housing discrimination, job applicants and employees who have experienced employment discrimination because of their race; age; disability; gender reassignment; marriage or civil partnership; pregnancy and/or maternity; religion or belief; sex; national origin or genetic information, and those who have been retaliated against for engaging in a protected activity.

Our primary allegiance is to Illinois residents who have low incomes, limited means and/or resources, or are members of protected classes. However, we endeavor to help any American citizen who contacts us.

Discriminating against someone is always unacceptable, and although we advocate for all victims of discrimination in any form, because

(a) race and age discrimination complaints combined encompassed 53.7% of EEOC complaint filings in 2020, with race discrimination alone comprising 32.7% of said cases;

(b) race and age discrimination are extremely difficult to prove and have very high failure rates in court cases—even when plaintiffs have extremely strong proof of the allegations contained in their complaints;

(c) race and age discrimination have an enormously adverse impact on the economy;

(d) age discrimination frequently affects vulnerable workers age 50+;

(e) numerous studies and well-documented personal testimonies have shown a connection between race and age discrimination, and illnesses and health inequities and crises;

(f) bills related to age discrimination (namely the Protecting Older Workers Against Discrimination Act, and the Supporting Older Workers Act, currently are pending in congress and/or the senate.

(g) in many instances, race and age discrimination seizes livelihoods and destroy careers forever, we are particularly concerned about those two forms of discrimination.

However, this does not in any way imply that other forms of discrimination are unimportant to us, for retaliation: 37,632 (55.8% of all EEOC complaints filed in 2020), and disability: 24,324 (36.1% of all EEOC complaints filed in 2020), these two forms of discrimination represent the Numbers 1 and 2 categories of complaints filed with the EEOC.

Additionally, with 21,398 (31.7% of all EEOC complaints filed in 2020), sex discrimination ranked Number 4 in total number of EEOC cases filed in 2020, and exceeded the number of age discrimination cases filed with the agency. However, as we previously explained, race and age discrimination are far more difficult to prove in court, and both have a much higher failure rate during litigation than other forms of discrimination.

Following is the entire Fiscal Year 2020 EEOC complaint filing data show that retaliation remained the most frequently cited claim in charges filed with the agency—accounting for a staggering 55.8 percent of all charges filed—followed by disability, race and sex. Specif¬ically, the charge numbers show the following categories of discrimination, in descending order of frequency:

• Retaliation: 37,632 (55.8 percent of all charges filed)
• Disability: 24,324 (36.1 percent)
• Race: 22,064 (32.7 percent)
• Sex: 21,398 (31.7 percent)
• Age: 14,183 (21.0 percent)
• National Origin: 6,377 (9.5 percent)
• Color: 3,562 (5.3 percent)
• Religion: 2,404 (3.6 percent)
• Equal Pay Act: 980 (1.5 percent)
• Genetic Information: 440 (0.7 percent)

These percentages add up to more than 100%, because some charges allege multiple bases. (Source: https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-releases-fiscal-year-2020-enforcement-and-litigation-data)

EEOC Chair, Charlotte Burrows, stated that the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting recession has made life more difficult for America’s workers in many ways. “The current pandemic is not only a public health crisis and an economic crisis—it’s also a civil rights crisis,” Burrows said. “COVID-19 and its economic fallout is disproportionately impacting people of color, women, older workers, individuals with disabilities, and other vulnerable workers, and that impact has serious implications in the workplace.”