Colorado civil rights agency dismissed 93% of complaints last year

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice

The Colorado Civil Rights Division reached a determination on 974 discrimination complaints in FY24-25 and dismissed 902 of them, or 93%.

In the other 72 it found probable cause to believe discrimination occurred, 44 fully and 28 in part. That works out to 7.4%.

Those 974 determinations cover about half the year’s work. The Division closed 1,947 cases in FY24-25.

Cases can close before any determination, through voluntary mediation or a settlement reached with an outside mediator.

A dismissal is not a finding that nothing happened. It means investigators did not find enough evidence to carry the complaint forward.

A complainant whose complaint is dismissed can appeal to the Civil Rights Commission or file suit in district court.

Appeals to the Commission hit 114 in FY24-25, the highest in 10 years.

The figures come from the sunset review of the Division and the Civil Rights Commission, released Oct. 15 by the Colorado Office of Policy, Research and Regulatory Reform, or COPRRR.

Both bodies expire Sept. 1, 2027 unless the General Assembly continues them.

COPRRR recommends nine more years, to 2036.

The rate has held steady

Probable cause findings ran 6.8% in FY20-21, 5% in FY21-22, 7.8% in FY22-23 and 9.6% in FY23-24. The five-year average is 7.3%.

Over the same five years the Division’s federal partners at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development averaged 7.8%, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, averaged 2.4%, the review reports.

Stakeholders offered reviewers one explanation for the low rate. Complaints with stronger claims may settle earlier, which would mean cases that might have produced a probable cause finding never reach a determination at all.

Complaints against individuals are the fastest-growing category

Filings rose from 1,457 in FY20-21 to 1,798 in FY24-25.

Companion cases alleging aiding and abetting moved from 66 to 289 over those same years, peaking at 292 in FY23-24.

Sarah Werner, a spokesperson for the Department of Regulatory Agencies, confirmed in an email that the 289 are accounted for in the 1,798.

State law makes it a discriminatory practice for any person to aid, abet, incite, compel or coerce a discriminatory or unfair employment practice.

A worker who files against an employer can file additional cases against each individual alleged to have contributed.

The review gives three examples.

A coworker accused of harassment. A human resources employee the harassment. A manager who carried out the firing.

COPRRR calls these filings “duplicative in nature” and says the increase is “perceived to have created a significant strain” on the Division.

They also cost the state money.

Claims filed against individual people under the aiding and abetting statute fall outside the Division’s workshare agreement with the EEOC and cannot be dual-filed, so the Division receives no EEOC funding to investigate them.

Settlement dollars are climbing

Parties who used outside mediators during the investigation phase reached $14,716,338 in settlements in FY24-25, more than double the $7,158,257 recorded the year before.

The Division runs its own mediation and conciliation as a separate process. It recorded 202 settlements in FY24-25 and $5,323,991 in total monetary relief, each the highest in the 10 years the review tracks.

Higher amounts may be related to companion cases, according to the review. When more individuals are named as respondents, complainants may demand higher amounts and more respondents may contribute to the payout.

A settlement is not an admission of discrimination, and nothing in the review says any of these were.

Dismissals come with less explanation

The Division sends two kinds of determination letters. It typically uses a long form when the burden of proof was met and often a short form when it was not.

That means most of the 902 whose complaints were dismissed last year would have received the version with less detail on how the decision was reached.

Stakeholders told reviewers they were frustrated by it. Reviewers recommend the Division standardize and expand both the factual basis and the rationale in its determination letters.

A separate recommendation would change who sits on the Commission

Current law reserves two of the seven Commission seats for the business community, one of them for a majority owner of a business employing at least five but fewer than 50 people and the other for a majority owner of a business employing more than 50. A third seat goes to a representative of a statewide chamber of commerce or similar business organization.

Recommendation 5 would replace those three with three seats for members “representing businesses,” with no size or affiliation requirement attached. The three employee association seats and the single at-large seat stay as they are.

Under the conceptual language COPRRR offers, the governor “should endeavor” to appoint that way, in place of the current requirement.

Werner said the recommendation is aimed at vacancies and geographic representation.

“As such, conceptual language is provided in the recommendation which seeks to simplify appointments by reducing specific statutory language, such as business size requirements and chamber of commerce requirements,” she wrote.

A 2024 performance audit by the Colorado Office of the State Auditor found that as of 2023, all seven commissioners lived in the Denver metropolitan area, and none had lived outside it for the prior two years.

Werner said that the recommendation addresses only section 24-34-303(1)(b)(I) and that no changes are contemplated to subsection (1)(b)(II). That subsection holds the political party limits and the requirement that at least four members come from groups that have faced discrimination.

She added that COPRRR’s role is to recommend.

“Any final decisions on changes to existing law will be determined by the Colorado General Assembly,” she wrote.

What the Division says about its own operations

Each investigator may carry an average of 70 cases.

According to the Division, its case system Caseconnect was built for another purpose and adapted for case management. The public can file an initial complaint through it but cannot upload supporting documents, so staff receive those separately and upload them by hand.

The system does not automatically track key statutory deadlines, so employees checking how much time is left on a case pull up a calendar and count days.

Caseconnect also accepts only one respondent per complaint. 

Stakeholders told reviewers it may hurt complainants representing themselves, because established case law may already limit their ability to name other respondents or create aiding and abetting cases later in the process.

Administrative Recommendation 1 asks the Division to keep working to acquire a system that meets its needs.

Employment cases took an average of 227 days to close in FY24-25, up from 218 at the start of the review period. Housing cases averaged 166 days and public accommodation cases 180.

The Division and Commission spent $5,710,142 in FY25-26 with 44 full-time equivalent employees, double the 22.2 allocated in FY20-21.

The General Fund share dropped about 15% that year, which reviewers attribute to budget constraints, while federal dollars rose.