[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 185 (Wednesday, November 8, 2023)]
[Senate]
[Page S5415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                   Nomination of Charlotte A. Burrows

  Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I support the nomination of Charlotte 
Burrows to be a Member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 
EEOC. Charlotte Burrows has been a member of the EEOC since 2015. She 
was first confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 93-2. When she was 
renominated in 2019, the Senate confirmed her by voice vote. I look 
forward to her being confirmed a third time.
  Charlotte Burrows is dedicated to ensuring that the EEOC plays a 
critical role in addressing systemic discrimination and advancing equal 
opportunity. Her priorities include advancing pay equity, preventing 
unlawful retaliation and harassment, addressing the use of artificial 
intelligence and other tech tools in employment decisions, and 
protecting vulnerable workers, including people with disabilities, 
older workers, temporary workers, and low-wage workers.
  During her tenure as Chair, Ms. Burrows has helped rebuild the EEOC 
and its capacity to enforce Federal antidiscrimination laws--restoring 
staffing levels to meet the public demand for agency services. Under 
Ms. Burrows' leadership, the EEOC has secured more than $500 million in 
monetary relief for some 38,000 victims of employment discrimination, 
and the EEOC has filed over 140 employment discrimination lawsuits in 
fiscal year 2023, a 50-percent increase over fiscal year 2022.
  Chair Burrows is committed to ensuring that workers are aware of 
their rights and employers are aware of their responsibilities. To help 
accomplish this goal, in fiscal year 2022, EEOC conducted over 3,300 
outreach and training events and provided more than 225,000 people 
nationwide with information about their rights and responsibilities in 
the workplace. In order to reach more vulnerable workers, the EEOC 
conducted 1,000 outreach events for vulnerable workers that reached 
nearly 80,000 individuals. Often, these events were in partnership with 
local organizations that know these vulnerable and underserved 
communities the best.
  During her time as Chair, she has overseen the implementation of the 
Pregnant Worker's Fairness Act, including advancing a bipartisan 
proposed rule to implement this important and much-needed law. She has 
also advanced a much-needed proposal to update harassment guidance and 
issued technical assistance on practices to prevent harassment in the 
Federal workplace. She has updated EEOC resources related to 
individuals with visual disabilities and employment protections for 
Americans with disabilities.
  Further, she launched the Artificial Intelligence and Algorithmic 
Fairness Initiative in 2021 to ensure that these systems are used in 
ways that reflect values of fairness and equality. The main goal of the 
Chair's initiative is to assist applicants, workers, employers, and 
vendors to understand how Federal equal employment opportunity laws 
apply to these new technologies. Under her leadership, the EEOC is 
working to address potentially harmful uses of this technology in the 
workforce.
  Chair Burrows' dedication to improving the lives of working families 
and making sure they receive the wages and benefits they deserve make 
her the right person to lead this agency. I thank her for her service, 
and I strongly support her nomination to continue as Chair of the EEOC.
  Mr. RICKETTS. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington.