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Stuart J. Ishimaru has been a Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) since 2003. Mr. Ishimaru was re-nominated by President George W. Bush for a second term and confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 19, 2007. His term expires July 1, 2012.
As a member of the Commission, he participates with the other Commissioners on all matters which come before it - including the development and approval of enforcement policies, authorization of litigation, and approval of agency regulations. Additionally, he issues Commissioner's charges of discrimination.
Commissioner Ishimaru has worked with his colleagues in pushing the Commission to focus on large, systemic cases and in reinvigorating the agency's work on race discrimination issues. He was instrumental in the Commission's adoption of groundbreaking guidance on gender discrimination against workers who have caregiving responsibilities.
Mr. Ishimaru opposed the Commission's actions to weaken age discrimination protections as well as to suppress collection of full data on workers of two or more races. Mr. Ishimaru also opposed misguided efforts to outsource and reorganize key EEOC functions.
Mr. Ishimaru previously served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice between 1999 and 2001, where he served as a principal advisor to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, advising on management, policy, and political issues involving the Civil Rights Division. He supervised more than 100 attorneys in high-profile litigation, including employment discrimination cases, fair housing and fair lending cases, criminal police misconduct, hate crime and slavery prosecutions, and enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Prior to this, as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division for five years, Mr. Ishimaru provided advice on a broad range of issues, including legislative affairs, politics and strategies.
In 1993, Mr. Ishimaru was appointed by President Clinton to be the Acting Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and from 1984-1993 served on the professional staffs of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights and two House Armed Services Subcommittees of the U.S. Congress.
Mr. Ishimaru, a native of San Jose, California, received his A.B. in Political Science and in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, and his law degree from the George Washington University. He is married to Agnieszka Fryszman, an attorney, and they have two sons, Matthew and Benjamin.
This page was last modified on January 29, 2008.