Timeline of Developments
Last development: September 11, 2023
- September 11, 2023
EEOC announces $365,000 settlement and injunctive relief
The EEOC publicly announces the resolution: iTutorGroup will pay $365,000 to be distributed among more than 200 rejected applicants. Non-monetary terms include: ongoing anti-discrimination training for hiring staff, a new written anti-discrimination policy, an injunction against age- or sex-based hiring discrimination, a ban on asking applicants for their birth date, and EEOC monitoring for at least five years. If iTutorGroup resumes hiring tutors in the U.S., it must also notify and offer to interview applicants it previously rejected for being too old. The EEOC's release notes iTutorGroup had by this point stopped hiring tutors in the United States.
- September 8, 2023
Court enters the consent decree
U.S. District Judge Pamela K. Chen enters the consent decree, making the settlement's terms official and enforceable. The decree runs for five years (or longer if iTutorGroup resumes U.S. hiring). iTutorGroup does not admit wrongdoing under the decree.
- August 9, 2023
Parties file joint notice of settlement
The EEOC and iTutorGroup file a joint notice with the court stating they have reached a settlement and intend to submit a consent decree - a court-approved settlement agreement - to resolve the case. Reporting on the filing notes that, as part of the settlement, iTutorGroup denies the allegations and specifically disputes that its tutors were "employees" covered by the ADEA at all, arguing they were independent contractors. A consent decree is a settlement the parties ask a judge to approve and enforce - it is not a verdict or a judicial finding that discrimination occurred.
- May 5, 2022
EEOC sues iTutorGroup for age discrimination
The EEOC files suit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Civil Action No. 1:22-cv-02565) against three integrated companies operating under the "iTutorGroup" brand - iTutorGroup, Inc., Shanghai Ping'An Intelligent Education Technology Co., Ltd., and Tutor Group Limited. The EEOC alleges the companies programmed their online tutor-recruitment software to automatically reject female applicants age 55 or older and male applicants age 60 or older, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The EEOC says it filed suit only after the parties could not reach a settlement through its required pre-litigation conciliation process. These are allegations in a filed complaint at this stage, not findings a court has made.