Discrimination complaints before state commission spike, worsening case backlog

For Robert Hanson, running day programs for adults with special needs was rewarding work. Some days were hard, he said, but he liked the mission.

“I've always wanted to help people and I've always had a compassion for people,” Hanson said. “I started in the field when I was like 24 years old.”

He worked at the same agency for seven years. But in January 2020, Hanson said he was called into a meeting and informed his job was terminated. He was told his eyesight was a safety issue, he recalled. Legally blind, the 57-year-old has lived with an eye disease called premature retinopathy since birth.

The meeting, which Hanson said came without warning, didn't sit right with him. “I knew that there was something wrong there,” he said. 

He hired a lawyer, who helped him file a complaint in 2020 against his former employer with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. From July 2019 through June 2024, more than 14,000 people filed allegations of discrimination, in employment, housing and other disputes, with the independent state agency.

Today, the agency faces a deluge of complaints. Last year, the commission logged a 15% increase in new filings, totaling 3,553. That’s the highest number of new submissions since 2008, according to data from the agency’s annual reports.

The agency's new leader, Michael Memmolo, said MCAD is working to address the swell of cases, including backfilling staff positions and modernizing their case management system. Still, the increase is concerning to legal experts who work with the commission.

“It's disappointing, but it's not surprising,” said Tom Murphy, a supervising attorney at the nonprofit Disability Law Center Inc. in Boston.

Murphy said many factors can contribute to a spike in complaints, including stubborn misconceptions about employees with disabilities.

Another factor, he said, is the lingering impact from the pandemic. Many experienced managers left roles across a variety of industries during the upheaval brought on by COVID-19. This left workforces with less experienced bosses, Murphy said.

“I think there's still just a lack of adequate awareness and training of decision-makers on issues that involve people with disabilities,” Murphy said, “like reasonable accommodation, which can be very complicated.”

Reasonable accommodation is when someone with a disability asks for something that allows them equal access. Murphy says a lot discrimination complaints come when an employer and employee can't agree on an accommodation.

Elisa Filman, a Natick lawyer at the firm Hanson hired — which represents both employees and employers in MCAD cases — cited several reasons why complaints may be on the rise. She said for one, employees feel more empowered to ask for what they need in workplaces.

“People are feeling more confident about talking about what's going on with them, from a mental health perspective or from a medical perspective,” Filman said. “So they're asking for more at work.”

She said Hanson settled his complaint in mediation without going to court. However, the number of disability-related cases like his or cases involving allegations of retaliation saw the biggest jump last year, according to the latest data from MCAD. The next largest buckets involved claims over discrimination based on sex, national origin and age.

Discrimination sometimes stems from unconscious or unspoken biases, Filman explained, like assuming someone cannot complete a work project because of their disability. Or wondering if a person will do their job well before taking family medical leave.

“For the most part, gone are the days of explicit discrimination,” Filman said. “Now it's a lot more subtle.”

This subtlety can complicate investigations into claims — which can take years to complete. Last year, there were 1,851 cases filed in previous years that MCAD officials had not finished, or in some cases, even started. That’s the agency's biggest backlog in over a decade.

In 2019, MCAD faced fewer than 300 pending cases. But since the pandemic, that number has exploded.

Sophia Hall,  deputy litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights in Boston, said her office receives about 1,000 calls a year from people who feel they've been discriminated against.

“Often when I see a client, it’s a person who's experienced discrimination not once, not twice, maybe not even five times — but maybe a dozen times,” she said. These people are so fed up, “they finally feel like they need to stand up, because they know other people are having that experience,” she added.

Reviews of MCAD by the state auditor’s office released in 2016 and 2022 found the agency repeatedly failed to complete investigations within the timeframes set by state law (100 days for housing and 18 months for other investigations). WBUR previously reported on complaints taking years to resolve and the toll delays take on those awaiting decisions.

“The messaging that happens emotionally is that this is par for the course and you should accept a life in which you're treated this way,” Hall said.

Lawyers for Civil Rights filed a letter to MCAD last February, citing the delays in investigations, and what the group asserts is an inadequate intake process for new complaints.

Memmolo, the head of MCAD, was named the agency's first-ever executive director last April. He said complaints increased in part because the public is more aware of the commission's work, noting MCAD launched a public service campaign last year and regularly conducts community workplace trainings.

He added the reopening of MCAD’s Worcester office, which closed temporarily in 2022, also may have spurred more people to file complaints.

The backlog “still is an issue that we're addressing every single solitary day here,” Memmolo said. However, he added there's been progress. Last year, the backlog grew by less than 3 percent.

Memmolo said more than three dozen investigators are sifting through new complaints, with each handling a few hundred cases at a time. The agency plans to swap its case management system this summer so people can file complaints online. The system will include additional languages, too.

“We are really hopeful to be able to sort of wipe the slate clean with our backlog, get ahead of that, implement our new technology, and be an agency that is proactive rather than reactive,” Memmolo said.