Contesting Workplace Discrimination in Court - American Bar ...

Part 2 | Employment Discrimination Case CharacteristicsVOLUME OF COMPLAINTS 1987-2003In thefour years between1993-96(the first Clintonadministration),the numberof complaintsincreasedsignificantlyfrom theprior six-year(1987-1992)period.We begin our analysis by noting trends in the frequency of complaints for the 1987-2003 period. We broke down thisseventeen-year period into four discrete time blocks: 1987-1992; 1993-96; 1997-2000; and 2001-2003. Each time block roughlycorresponds to prior presidential administrations, but two exceptions should be kept in mind. First, we included complaintsfrom 1987 and 1988 (Reagan administration) to the first time-period covering the tenure of the first President Bush (1989-1992).Second, since our data base ends with 2003 cases, the final time block (2001-03) covers just the first three years of the secondPresident Bush’s first term. Such considerations notwithstanding, Figure 2.1 shows a clear pattern in the volume of EDLcomplaints over time. In the four years between 1993-96 (the first Clinton administration), the number of complaints increasedsignificantly from the prior six-year (1987-1992) period. The volume of complaints then rose even higher and peaked duringClinton’s second administration. This trend was then reversed during George W. Bush’s first term, as the volume of complaints shotdown to roughly 1987-1992 levels (keeping in mind that this excludes complaints from 2004, the final year of Bush’s first term).figure 2.1 :number of edl complaints(sample frequencies) 1987-2003(n=1788)-3-