The numbers at a glance
- 1,572 race discrimination charges filed in California with the EEOC in fiscal 2025
- 33.1% of all California EEOC charges alleged race discrimination
- 7,655 California right to sue complaints alleging race discrimination in 2024, plus 5,140 alleging color
- 13,672 race based harassment charges nationwide in fiscal 2025, up 76 percent in four years
- 8.1 race charges per 100,000 California workers
Race discrimination is alleged in roughly one of every three discrimination charges filed in California, a share that has held for fifteen years while the total rose and fell. California law also separately protects color, ancestry and national origin, and since 2020 hair texture and protective hairstyles associated with race under the CROWN Act.
California race charges by year
| Fiscal year | California charges, race | Share of all California charges | U.S. charges | California share of U.S. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1,572 | 33.1% | 29,338 | 5.4% |
| 2024 | 1,797 | 35.2% | 30,270 | 5.9% |
| 2023 | 1,651 | 32.1% | 27,505 | 6.0% |
| 2022 | 1,030 | 23.4% | 20,992 | 4.9% |
| 2021 | 1,370 | 35.4% | 20,908 | 6.6% |
| 2020 | 1,397 | 33.8% | 22,064 | 6.3% |
| 2019 | 1,421 | 33.2% | 23,976 | 5.9% |
| 2018 | 1,365 | 31.4% | 24,600 | 5.5% |
| 2017 | 1,811 | 33.4% | 28,528 | 6.3% |
| 2016 | 1,905 | 32.5% | 32,309 | 5.9% |
| 2015 | 2,015 | 32.5% | 31,027 | 6.5% |
| 2014 | 2,176 | 34.2% | 31,073 | 7.0% |
| 2013 | 2,285 | 33.2% | 33,068 | 6.9% |
| 2012 | 2,299 | 31.1% | 33,512 | 6.9% |
| 2011 | 2,372 | 33.1% | 35,395 | 6.7% |
| 2010 | 2,239 | 31.3% | 35,890 | 6.2% |
| 2009 | 2,251 | 33.8% | 33,579 | 6.7% |
The California share of race charges has stayed between 23 and 35 percent of all charges in every year of the series, the low being fiscal 2022 when a wave of religion charges over vaccine policies distorted every other share. Nationally race was 33.3 percent of charges in fiscal 2025.
A note on how to read the EEOC figures. The EEOC counts a charge under every basis it alleges, so a single charge that claims sex discrimination and retaliation shows up in both columns and the columns add up to more than the total. The state figures cover charges filed with the EEOC itself, not the tens of thousands of complaints California workers file with the state Civil Rights Department, which we cover separately.
State complaints, race, color and ancestry
| Basis | Right to sue 2024 | Right to sue 2023 | Right to sue 2022 | Investigated 2024 | Investigated 2023 | Investigated 2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Race | 7,655 | 5,791 | 4,973 | 1,190 | 1,322 | 1,086 |
| Color | 5,140 | 3,992 | 3,158 | 358 | 445 | 394 |
| Ancestry | 2,814 | 2,698 | 2,128 | 427 | 383 | 341 |
| National origin | 4,053 | 3,675 | 2,989 | 524 | 503 | 469 |
Race right to sue complaints in California rose 54 percent from 2022 to 2024. Color complaints rose 63 percent. Among complaints CRD chose to investigate, race was the third most common basis in 2024 after disability and retaliation.
A note on how to read the CRD figures. The Civil Rights Department publishes its numbers by calendar year, and it counts a complaint under every basis it lists, so the basis rows add up to more than the number of complaints. Most California workers who go to court first ask CRD for an immediate right to sue notice rather than an investigation, so the right to sue table is the closer measure of how many people are actually pursuing a claim.
Racial harassment
The EEOC keeps a separate table for harassment because of race. Receipts were 7,755 in fiscal 2021 and 13,672 in fiscal 2025, a 76 percent increase, the steepest of any harassment series the agency publishes. Racial harassment is now 36.6 percent of all harassment charges. California does not publish a racial harassment count; those complaints sit inside the race figures above.
Nationally the EEOC resolved 30,444 race based charges in fiscal 2025. 1,941 settled, 1,730 were withdrawn with benefits, 442 ended in a reasonable cause finding, 21,210 in a no cause finding and 5,112 were closed administratively. Merit resolutions totaled 4,122, 13.5 percent of resolutions, and the agency obtained 119.1 million dollars for charging parties without litigation.
What these numbers mean if it happened to you
- Race discrimination includes hiring, pay, promotion, discipline, assignments and termination, and harassment because of race is a claim of its own.
- Slurs, nicknames, jokes and being held to a different standard are evidence. So are statistics about who gets promoted.
- The CROWN Act makes discrimination based on hair texture or protective styles race discrimination in California.
- You do not need a comparator of another race for every claim, but when one exists, document it.
Deadlines that decide these cases
A California worker has three years from the last act of harassment or discrimination to file with the Civil Rights Department, and one year after a right to sue notice to file in court. The federal deadline is much shorter, 300 days to file a charge with the EEOC. The counts on this page only include people who filed inside those windows. Everyone who waited too long is missing from every table here.
Treated differently because of your race?
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Sources
The figures on this page were taken from the following publications, as released by the agencies. Percentages, changes, sums and rates per 100,000 workers are our own arithmetic from those figures.
- EEOC, Table E1b, charge receipts by state and basis, FY 2009 to FY 2025, www.eeoc.gov
- EEOC, Table E4e, race based charge receipts and resolutions, FY 1997 to FY 2025, www.eeoc.gov
- EEOC, Table E4g, race based harassment charge receipts and resolutions, FY 1992 to FY 2025, www.eeoc.gov
- EEOC, Table E2a, charges alleging harassment, FY 2010 to FY 2025, www.eeoc.gov
- California Civil Rights Department, 2024 Annual Report (complaint tables and county appendix), calcivilrights.ca.gov
- California Civil Rights Department, 2023 Annual Report, calcivilrights.ca.gov
- California Civil Rights Department, 2022 Annual Report, calcivilrights.ca.gov
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics, California and county labor force, latest month available in September 2026, www.bls.gov
Frequently asked questions
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Attorney advertising. The figures on this page come from the public sources listed above and are reproduced or computed as described. They are provided for general information and do not constitute legal advice, nor does reading this page create an attorney-client relationship. Every case is different. If you believe your rights were violated, consult a California employment attorney promptly, filing deadlines apply.