Former EEOC leader dies at 53
Jacqueline Berrien. Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chair Jacqueline Berrien has died at the age of 53.
Berrien led the EEOC from 2010 to 2014. The cause of death was cancer, the New York Times reports. A press release is here.
The Times notes several achievements while Berrien led the EEOC. The agency promulgated rules barring discrimination in employment and insurance based on disability or genetic test results. It also won a $240 million verdict for workers with intellectual disabilities at an Iowa turkey processing plant. The verdict was reduced to $1.6 million because of a damages cap.
A friend of Berrien’s, Melanie Eversley, told the Times that Berrien became ill in August during the NAACP’s Journey for Justice march from Selma, Alabama, to Washington, D.C.
Berrien graduated from Harvard Law School, and later taught there and at New York Law School. She also was director and counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.
