You generally cannot look up EEOC complaints. Charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are confidential by federal statute, and the agency is barred from releasing them to the public. The only common way a discrimination allegation enters the public record is when the charging party or the EEOC itself files a lawsuit in federal court after the administrative process ends.
The Confidentiality Rule Behind EEOC Charges
Two provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act keep charges out of public view. Section 706(b) states that “charges shall not be made public by the Commission” and bars disclosure of what happens during conciliation or mediation. Section 709(e) makes it a criminal misdemeanor for any EEOC officer or employee to reveal information the agency obtained through its investigative authority before a lawsuit is filed.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 2000e-5 – Enforcement Provisions
The penalty is a fine of up to $1,000, imprisonment for up to one year, or both.2Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 US Code 2000e-8 – Investigations The rule applies whether the EEOC finds reasonable cause, dismisses the charge, or the parties settle. There is no public docket of EEOC charges, no name-search tool, no way for an outsider to confirm that a specific person filed or that a specific employer was named.
FOIA Requests Will Not Get You Someone Else’s Charge
Filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the EEOC will not produce another person’s charge file. The agency denies these requests under FOIA Exemption 3, which shields information that another federal statute specifically prohibits from being disclosed. The EEOC’s FOIA reference guide confirms that Sections 706(b) and 709(e) of Title VII, Section 107 of the ADA, and Section 207 of GINA all qualify as Exemption 3 statutes, blocking third-party access to charge files before a lawsuit is filed.3U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Freedom of Information Act Reference Guide
Journalists, competitors, prospective employers, and members of the public have no legal path to the contents of a charge file. Confidentiality holds during the investigation and after it closes, provided no federal lawsuit follows.
Do EEOC Complaints Show Up on Background Checks?
No. Because the charges are confidential by statute, they do not appear on standard employment background checks. Screening companies pull from court records, criminal databases, credit reports, and similar public sources. An EEOC charge sits only in the agency’s own files and stays invisible to those searches.4U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Confidentiality
A settled or dismissed charge that never reaches court stays hidden. If the charge turns into a federal lawsuit, the court case is what becomes visible, not the underlying EEOC file.
When a Complaint Becomes a Public Record
The move from confidential file to public record happens when a lawsuit is filed. If the EEOC dismisses a charge or cannot resolve it through conciliation, it issues a Notice of Right to Sue. The charging party then has 90 days from receiving that notice to file a civil complaint in a U.S. District Court.5U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Filing a Lawsuit
Once filed, the complaint and every later document in the case become accessible through the Public Access to Court Electronic Records system, better known as PACER. Anyone with a PACER account can search by party name, case number, or date range. Access costs $0.10 per page, capped at the equivalent of 30 pages per document, and court opinions are free.6United States Courts. Find a Case (PACER) The civil complaint is a separate document from the EEOC charge, though it covers the same allegations and typically references the earlier administrative process.
Sealing a federal employment case is possible but uncommon. Courts operate under a strong presumption of public access to judicial records, and a party seeking to seal must show “compelling reasons supported by specific factual findings.” Embarrassment or fear of future litigation is not enough. Sealing tends to appear only where trade secrets, sensitive medical information, or minors are involved.
Looking Up Lawsuits the EEOC Files Itself
When the EEOC brings its own lawsuit rather than issuing a Right to Sue letter to the individual, the case is public from the day it is filed. The agency generally sues in cases involving patterns of discrimination across multiple employees or matters that raise significant legal issues. These cases can be found through PACER or through the EEOC’s newsroom, which offers a searchable archive of press releases and litigation announcements organized by year, location, and keyword.7U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Newsroom
If you want to check whether a particular company has faced an EEOC-initiated lawsuit, the newsroom and PACER are where those records live. What you will not find is any record of privately filed charges that resolved at the agency.
Aggregate Enforcement Data
Even though individual files stay closed, the EEOC publishes detailed aggregate statistics on its enforcement activity. The data covers charges filed nationwide, broken down by type of discrimination, statute, and geographic region.8U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Enforcement and Litigation Statistics Those numbers show trends, not names.
What the Parties in a Charge Can See
The confidentiality rule shuts out the public, not the people involved. The charging party and the employer named in the charge can both obtain records from their own case. Sharing records with the parties is not treated as “making public” under the statute, so it does not violate the confidentiality rules.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Section 83 Disclosure of Information in Charge Files
After the EEOC finishes processing a charge, parties and their attorneys can request the investigative file through a Section 83 request, named after Section 83 of the EEOC Compliance Manual. The process is designed to be simpler than a standard FOIA request: submit a signed written request by mail or email to the District Director of the office where the charge was filed.10U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Section 83 Disclosure of Information in Charge Files
The file released under Section 83 is not complete. Settlement or conciliation offers that one party made but the EEOC never conveyed to the other party are stripped out. Mediation files are kept entirely separate from the charge file and are not subject to Section 83 disclosure at all.9U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Section 83 Disclosure of Information in Charge Files
During an open investigation, since January 2016, the EEOC has released the employer’s position statement and non-confidential attachments to the charging party upon request, and the charging party then has 20 days to respond.11U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Questions and Answers for Charging Parties on EEOCs New Position Statement Procedures That exchange happens between the parties. The employer’s position statement is not available to anyone outside the case.
The Short Answer for a Records Search
If you are trying to look up EEOC complaints against a person or a company, the practical answer is that you cannot, not through the EEOC, not through FOIA, and not through a background check. You can search PACER for federal employment discrimination lawsuits, and you can search the EEOC newsroom for cases the agency itself has brought. Everything else the EEOC handles stays sealed by law.