Jenny R. Yang is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute where she is leading a Workplace Equity Initiative to revitalize our anti-discrimination laws and dismantle systemic barriers to opportunity. Ms. Yang served as Chair and Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 2013 to 2018. Under her leadership, the Commission launched the Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace to identify innovative solutions to prevent harassment at work. Yang led efforts to tackle systemic discrimination, including enhancing the EEOC’s annual data collection to include employer reporting of pay data. Yang created new procedures for public input on guidance documents to promote transparency and launched digital systems to facilitate online charge information.
Yang is also a strategic partner with Working IDEAL, where she assists employers in comprehensive harassment prevention efforts, independent investigations, and in the design and implementation of employment practices to promote diversity, inclusion and equality of opportunity. Prior to joining the EEOC, Ms. Yang spent a decade representing workers in civil rights actions nationwide as a partner at Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC. From 1998 to 2003, she served as a Senior Trial Attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Employment Litigation Section. She is a graduate of Cornell University and New York University School of Law.