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Stuart J. Ishimaru was designated by President Obama as Acting Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on January 20, 2009. Mr. Ishimaru has been a Commissioner since 2003, and is serving a second term that expires July 1, 2012.
Mr. 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 the Division's 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. From 1994-1999, Mr. Ishimaru served as Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and provided advice on a broad range of issues.
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 27, 2009.