I wrote to EEOC after I had been discriminated against. The director agreed that I had a case but said I couldn't do anything because I work for a non profit. Since then another worker at EEOC has excepted and is following up on a case against the same employer. The employee has a letter stating that the EEOC has found merit in her complaint and is going into the concilliation phase. What can I do now, my 180 days has past. I thought these people knew what they were talking about? Do I have any recourse?
2late

Working for a non-profit is irrelevant, unless it was a religious non-profit and the treatment you experienced was a result of the church exercising their right to enforce their beliefs. Like if you were a woman and wanted to sue for sex discrimination because the Catholic Church wouldn't hire you as a priest. The EEOC won't act on that.

Another employee's claim against the same group is probably not relevant as each case is very fect specific. Just because they discriminated against one person, does not mean they discriminated against another.

Did you receive a Right to Sue letter? Did you act on that?

I was specifically told by the director of the Raliegh NC office that I had been discriminated against. He told me I couldn't do anything because I work for a non profit. As a matter of fact he told me I had a case both on gender and racial discrimination and how sorry he was that he couldn't help me.
The circumstances of both cases reek of discrimination. It is rampant where I come from. Had he not given me incorrect information, there would have been three cases against the same company.
I am very aware of what discrimination is. I've lived it for more than 30 years.
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Does anyone have an anwer to the question, Can I do anything after the 180 period has past??????

Did you get a Right to Sue letter or Dismissal notice? We can't tell you anything until we know that. What you may have heard during the investigation isn't really relevant at this point.

You would have 90 days to file a lawsuit once you received the notice. Once your 90 days are up, if you didn't pursue it, then you are out of luck.

You need to consult with an attorney. One who is experienced in your type of case.

Discrimination law is a complex set of statutes, public policy, etc, at federal, state, and local levels.

If yours is a race discrimination claim, you may not even need to go through the eeoc.

State laws also vary.

EEOC investigators are NOT attorneys.
They are Investigators.
Misinformation and difference in interpretations are not uncommon.
They often do not fully understand the very laws which they investigate.
(This by their own admission--they are underfunded, understaffed, and have been significantly downsized, causing a very high turnover rate & loss of quality employees).

Sometimes state agencies are a better recourse, but regardless, I suggest consulting an attorney. They will be able to review the details of your specific case and find out what, if any recourse you may have. They will also be able to guide you through the filing process should you indeed have a claim and decide to pursue it through a government agency.

Some attorneys prefer to work through one agency over another, based on their experiences with each--for example, a state agency may be better funded than a EEOC field office in a particular state.

Some may even bypass the agency altogether--or pull it after a given period of time.

Good luck.

What was the date of the alleged discriminatory act? Did you file a charge of discrimination with EEOC? Did you receive a written notice from EEOC informing you of the determination on your case? Did the letter provide you with a notice of right to sue? If you received a notice of right to sue, when did you receive it?

If you received a formal notice of disposition on a charge you filed with EEOC, you can request a reconsideration of the decision. You direct your request to the EEOC office that processed your charge.

If you didn't file a charge with EEOC, what proof do you have of your communication with the director of the Raleigh office?

I wrote a letter in March of 2005. I recieved a letter from EEOC with a request to call them for a phone interview. It was then that I was told I didn't have any recourse because I worked for a non-profit. This came from the director(at that time). He did tell me I could file a com[plaint but also warned me that I could be fired as many others have. I declined to file because I didn't think I had any protection.
I have no proof of contact other than my letter to them and from them.

You could write a letter to the Director of the EEOC office explaining your situation. You could even insist upon filing a charge now. However, my guess is that, without some proof of misconduct, EEOC would dismiss it as untimely filed. However, EEOC would have to issue you a notice of right to sue that you could use to file a lawsuit in Federal District Court. Theoretically, the Court could allow your matter to proceed, but again without some proof that you were misled by EEOC, I doubt the Court would.

If your matter is directly related to that of the woman for whom EEOC has found a violation, you may want to ask her if your situation was reviewed during EEOC's investigation. For example, if both your complaint and hers involved supervisor X's failure to promote women, EEOC may have looked into supervisor X's promotion activity, including his failure to promote you. However, if you two just happen to work for the same employer, it's unlikely that the scope of EEOC's investigation would have covered you.

In reference to the EEOC not responding to your claim of discrimination, even though you wrote them within the 180 days, I have found this case: Pietras vs. Farmingville Board of Fire Commissioners:
"(We) find no jurisdictional bar to this Title VII action. Farmingville contends, however, that even if there is no jurisdictional bar the district court erred by granting Pietras a waiver for her failure to obtain an EEOC letter. We disagree. Given that Pietras made a diligent effort to obtain a notice-of-right-to-sue letter from the EEOC and was denied one on the erroneous basis that she was not an employee, we believe that the district court acted well within its discretion by excusing the absence of such a letter in this case"

This was a volunteer fire department, the adminstration of the department tried to say that because she had no letter from EEOC she had no right to sue them. The court disagreed. The court held that Farmingville volunteers received "significant remuneration" and were ruled employees, despite not receiving a salary. The other main point is that she tried to involve EEOC and they felt she was not under their jurisdiction, so they told her they could not help her. Sound familiar?

But, the OP WAS an employee. Was that not an important factor in the case you cited?

I think fight4right's point was that the Appeals Court excused the plaintiff's failure to have a right to sue notice because EEOC gave her erroneous information. S/he finds that analogus to the OP's situation in that she alleges that she was misled by the EEOC office.

While the principle of equitable tolling could apply, I think the OP is going to have a proof or evidentiary problem. At the time of the Pietras rulling, the law was unsettled on the question of whether volunteers were in fact employees subject to protection under the employment anti-discrimination statutes. Given that, the Court probably didn't question that plaintiff had been told by EEOC that it didn't have jurisdiction. However, that's not the case for the OP. The law is settled, and has been for years, that employees of non-profits are covered by the employment anti-discrimination laws. It's hard to believe that anyone, especially an EEOC office director, told her that employees of non-profits aren't covered by the federal laws.

Patty, she was a volunteer. This was one of the big cases proving volunteers as employees, after Haavistola. The courts decided that, based on the benefits she enjoyed as a volunteer, she was actually an employee, even though she was not entitled to a salery. Good stuff.