VEVRAA

(Corporate) Stolen Valor

The following post is from a Navy veteran and CA attorney.

What is Corporate Stolen Valor? 

Stolen Valor describes the acts of individuals who falsely claim to have received military decorations. This legal usage comes from the Stolen Valor Act of 2013, codified as 18 U.S.C. §704. Since valor isn’t a tangible item subject to larceny, the phrase refers to the idea of dishonestly associating yourself with somebody else’s achievements. Individuals found to have violated the law are subject to serious consequences, including imprisonment. 

So Corporate Stolen Valor means—what? A company cannot receive the Silver Star, nor claim to have done so. What businesses can, and often do, say is that they value and admire veterans so much that they go out of their way to employ them. They will publicly announce their intention to hire thousands of veterans, and then publicly congratulate themselves for meeting or exceeding their stated goal. Verifying that they have done any of the things they claim is difficult, thanks to the steps these companies take to guard their employment information. It takes less effort to associate your brand with the sacrifices of veterans than it does to tangibly benefit veterans. For example, the Walt Disney Company announced in 2022 that its “Heroes Work Here” initiative had led to the company hiring over 12,500 veterans in ten years. Their press release neglected to mention that Disney is a federal contractor required to take positive steps to recruit veterans, and that they actively resisted attempts by the Department of Labor to verify their hiring claims.  

It's bad enough that business executives make these announcements for their own glory. But many of these same businesses, like Disney, have sizable contracts with the government. VEVRAA purports to require that veterans receive “priority in referral” for job openings. So not only aren’t the corporations going above and beyond what a less-patriotic company does, as they so loudly claim, they aren’t even meeting the obligations contractors supposedly accrue by taking taxpayer money. Because of the current flaws in VEVRAA, along with the lack of government enforcement, this can be perfectly legal.  

Hence, the concept of Corporate Stolen Valor. Large companies can take the positive characteristics associated with military service from veterans and give nothing in return. This practice affects considerably more people than some guy buying a Navy Achievement Medal he didn’t earn, but unlike that guy, corporations have no deterrent. 

Mike Levin Cancels on Military Family

 
 

The following is an email I sent to local news reporters asking for information after calling other news tip lines. All expressed interest but had reporters already assigned elsewhere. They asked me to send them an email with my concerns and said they’d follow up. So we’ll see... 🤷

Thank you for requesting information about ​sitting vigil outside Mike Levin's Congressional District Office in Dana Point, CA. As a 40-year-old totally and permanently disabled combat veteran, my body doesn't have the same strength a 42 year old Rosa Parks had when she stood up for human dignity on this day 57 years ago. Some of us only get to aspire to sainthood...

I anticipated staying into the night and sleeping on the ground like I was used to in the army, but I have to be honest about what my body and my family can take in the face of Mike Levin's disrespect and disregard of the rights of military families. I will continue to vigil until the end of business at 5pm and I hope that Make Levin's staff (CCed) will show up and make good on the promises their boss has refused to honor. I have been documenting my action on TikTok; https://www.tiktok.com/@iamloganmi

Levin's staff has insisted I be on a Zoom Call tomorrow morning at 9am, a meeting I was given 25 hours advance warning of and which conflicts with drop off for my two children. Here is the call-in info. I hope you will join us, perhaps you might see something in the information below that stirs questions you think your readers might be interested in;

[redacted]

Finally, here is the email that constitutes what I hoped to share with his staff ...until they tucked tail and ran.

​-----

Mike Levin ​was sworn into office Jan. 3, 2019 and was assigned to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, and awarded the Chairmanship of the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee, which he has held his entire four-year ​tenure as a Congressman. Though not a veteran, he is supposed to represent San Clemente (with an above-average veteran concentration of 9.5%), Oceanside (10.9% vets), and Camp Pendleton (over 40k servicemembers). According to their website, his Subcommittee “has legislative, oversight, and investigative jurisdiction over the education of veterans, employment and training of veterans…” At the time he took office, that jurisdiction included 38 USC 4212, which created affirmative action for certain veterans in 1974. As part of the law, veterans alleging employment discrimination can file complaints with the ​Secretary of Labor​, ​who must report to Congress​. Here is the relevant subsection, in red;

 
 

The reports required by 4212(c) are administered and transmitted to Congress by a DoL subagency known as VETS; Veterans Education and Training Service. Here are the statements of compliance in the last three Fiscal Year Reports;

 
 

These statements are frequently not true. 4212(c) requires DOL to report "the number of reports... the actions taken thereon and resolutions thereof."​ This is the FY2019 report, which Levin's office would have received;

 
 

This DOL VETS report to Congress includes "the number of complaints" but is missing "the actions taken thereon and resolutions thereof." As chairman of the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee, I brought this to Mike Levin's attention on May 14, 2019. Then, On July 26, 2019 I asked Mike Levin live on C-SPAN

Would you be willing and able to hold a hearing in your committee, Economic Opportunity Subcommittee under [the House Veterans Affairs Committee] to look into how to consolidate and expand and strengthen those civil rights that do exist for soldiers and veterans?

He​ responded favorably. Below you can​ view the clip, or click HERE. I never got a reply to follow-up emails and in January his party will hand over control of House committees to Republicans.

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The FY2020 VETS reports did become minimally compliant with 38 USC 4212(c), in part, I suspect, because of pressure I applied to agents William Torrans and Robert Shepard. Here is the FY2020 VETS report (note the table at the bottom with the relevant data);

 
 

​In June of 2022, my family returned to our native Orange County. When the FY2021 VETS report was published, I discovered that not only had it removed the 4212(c) table, it had removed all mention of complaints, a violation of 4212(c);

 
 

A few days after the report went live on the VETS website, I visited Levin's office in Dana Point, where I spoke with a staffer and set an in-person meeting with him for December 1st, the 57th anniversary of Rosa Park's civil disobedience that sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the modern civil rights movement as we know it.

I also asked for an in-person meeting with Mike Levin himself, since his office had failed to act on the information despite the responsibility being chairperson requires. When my wife and I arrived this morning a few minutes late, I saw the same Dana Point staff member who had set the meeting up in his car. He would later drive away in the same car.

I do not know what Levin and his staff are afraid of, but I have a few guesses, and it has to do with the story the data tells. Stories of unchecked harassment, bias, and discrimination against veterans like myself. In 2016, I filed a 4212 complaint against Duke University. I won't go into all the details, but here is the form I submitted in September 2016;

 
 

A year later, my complaint was denied for "insufficient evidence" despite rampant corruption, including flagrant disregard for the law by university officials. In just one instance, a document was altered despite being under active investigation, a violation of 18 USC §1505 and 18 USC §1519. Here is a university policy they didn't even try to hide being altered two four days before Veterans Day and two months into a 12+ month investigation;

When I FOIAed the enforcement data from DOL, I discovered what the DOL and/or Levin might be afraid to become public knowledge; employment discrimination against veterans is a BIG problem. Since 2004, veterans complaints under 4212 represents DOL's largest caseload. But in that same period of time they dened veterans their rights as much as four times as they did complaints under other statutes. Here is the FOIA data visualized;

Levin has some explaining to do to the veteran community. I suppose that might make him afraid of his own constituents. But that is no excuse for what he has done today by running from, gaslighting, and canceling meetings with his own military constituents. He needs to answer for what he has failed to do while he controlled the only Congressional body responsible for veteran employment and holding agencies like VETS accountable for false reports.

I hope you will help me hold Levin and the DOL accountable for denying veterans like myself the rights we've already fought for.

 

VEVRAA Complaints: Progress (?)

DoL VETS Congressional Report finally resembles its statutory obligation

I have been hounding a few bureaucrats at the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) in the Labor Department about not reporting VEVRAA complaint investigation data to Congress. I’ve written about that effort here and here, but the TLDR version is that nobody knows that employment discrimination complaints by veterans have been denied at a disproportionately high rate because DoL has been noncompliant with 38 U.S.C. § 4212(c).

Since February 2020 (at the latest), I have been raising the alarm with DoL, VETS, GAO, VSOs, I even filed criminal complaints with the FBI against the bureaucrats responsible for the reports under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. On the surface, nothing was working. Worse, the COVID pandemic provided cover for VETS to delay the release of their Congressional report for months. According to a committee staffer on the House VA Committee, the 2019 report was delivered in March of the next year. The 2020 report was not delivered until August. Here is what the report includes (see page 18);

 
 

What is missing, and which I hoped to see, is how many complaints resulted in a finding of merit. In other words, how many discriminatory, harassing, or biased government contractors were found to be in violation of VEVRAA. Thanks to the DoL Enforcement Data website, we know that just one out of 18 VEVRAA complaint investigations closed in 2020 resulted in a violation. That does not explain why the VETS report cites 194 complaints, a discrepancy I can’t figure out and which VETS has refused to explain to me in multiple emailed requests.

But the fact is that Congress now has more information about veterans (lack of enforcement of) employment protections. I don’t know who else has been barking up their tree, but I’m going to assume it was THIS (👎 pointing at me) persistent widow who managed to create some change. I don’t feel like celebrating though, because, taking the VETS report at face value, the numbers are still frustrating at best.

Of almost 200 veterans who mustered the nerve to report their employer for bias, harassment, and/or discrimination, only eleven managed to get any real action taken, in the form of a Settlement or Conciliation agreement.

Complaints can only be Closed (44% of the outcomes) if the complainant withdraws, perhaps under threat or duress, or if the DOL decides they have no jurisdiction. Which, let’s be honest, is an easy way to keep departmental costs down. And military suicides up.

 
 

EEOC referrals (40%), as in my case, do not resolve the complaint and are usually dismissed because the EEOC does not protect veterans. Only the DoL can investigate veteran employment discrimination. EEOC referrals are like personality disorders for discharging soldiers, it is a lazy way to pass the buck.

Finally, a “No Violation” is the same as “Notice of Right to Sue” (11%) in that it is the DoL telling the veteran to shut the fµ¢k up and drive on in a hostile work environment, which just got hostile-er because they blew the whistle.

The silver lining is that Congressional Reporting improved, it went from one sentence in the annual VETS report to a paragraph and a table. That’s something, even if it isn’t much.

VEVRAA — Almost Justice

A Legislative History of 38 U.S.C. § 4212

The Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment and Assistance Act (VEVRAA) is a law that establishes affirmative action for some veterans. Although many agencies cite it as originating in 1974, its core language became law in 1972 as Section 503 of the Veterans’ Employment and Readjustment Act (Public Law 92–540). Here is a relevant snapshot of that section;

 

Detail of Title V, the Veterans Employment and Readjustment Act of 1972

 

VEVRAA by any other name

Rep. Olin Teague (D-TX6) introduced H.R. 12828 to the House, which unanimously passed the bill on March 6 of that year, and the Senate followed suit five months later on August 3. The bill became law when President Nixon signed it on October 24, 1972. VEVRAA, by another name, was born as Chapter 42 of Title 38 of the United States Code, “Employment and Training of Disabled and Vietnam Era Veterans.”

Two years later, H.R. 12628 proposed small but significant changes to VEVRAA that would bring it firmly within the realm of civil rights. But before it became law, the bill underwent a few name changes and had to overcome a presidential veto. Two changes the bill made introduced affirmative action for veterans. Another two changes gave more comprehensive force to the law by substituting ‘emphasis in’ for ‘employment.’ In other words, veterans deserve more than just window dressing and lip service — they deserve real action. Here is a preview of what eventually became law;

 

Section 402 of The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974

 

When introduced by Rep. WJ Bryan Dorn (D-SC3) on February 26, 1974, H.R. 12628 was called “The Veterans’ Education and Rehabilitation Amendments Act.” It reached President Gerald Ford’s desk just after Veterans Day, but he vetoed it a week later. Democrats controlled both chambers, so they were able to override his veto. It is not clear exactly when the title changed, but on December 3, 1974, Public Law 93–508 legalized affirmative action for veterans as “The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974.”

Therefore, the whole of Public Law 93–508 is technically VEVRAA, but it is Section 402 that amended the essential elements of the law as we know it today. Side note: Section 403 of the same law amended VEVRAA by adding a section to Chapter 42, establishing what we now think of as the federal ‘Veterans’ Preference’ in hiring.

VEVRAA Grows Up, Not Out

The next amendment came in 1976 with S.969, introduced by Sen. Vance Hartke (D-IN) on March 5. It took six months to be reported to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, but once it was, it raced through and was signed by Ford on October 15, just a few weeks before he lost the election to Gov. Jimmy Carter of Georgia. Section 605 of the Veterans’ Education and Employment Assistance Act of 1976 (Public Law 94–502) amended VEVRAA by requiring the Secretary of Labor to report employment and complaint data to Congress. Another thing the 1976 law did was to substitute male pronouns in federal law with gender neutral language.

As I have written about elsewhere, I have found no evidence that the complaint reporting requirement has been met since it became law over four decades ago. The reporting requirement of VEVRAA has never changed; the 1976 language remains in place at 38 U.S.C. § 4212(c);

 

Section 605 of The Veterans’ Education and Employment Assistance Act of 1976

 

VEVRAA continued to be amended, but the core of the law can be clearly seen above. In 1978, Section Six of the Veterans’ Administration Programs Extension Act (Public Law 95–520) expanded VEVRAA to protect any veteran receiving VA disability compensation. In 1980, Section 509 of the Veterans’ Rehabilitation and Education Amendments (Public Law 96–466) simplified the complaints paragraph (c) to say:

If any special disabled veteran or veteran of the Vietnam era believes any contractor of the United States has failed to comply or refuses to comply with the provisions of the contractor’s contract relating to the employment of veterans, the veteran may file a complaint with the Secretary of Labor, who shall promptly investigate such complaint and take appropriate action in accordance with the terms of the contract and applicable laws and regulations.

In 1982, Section 310 of the Veterans’ Compensation, Education, and Employment Amendments (Public Law 97–306) added Subsection D to VEVRAA. With this bill, federal contractors had to track and report detailed information on what kind of positions veterans held;

 

Section 310 of the Veterans’ Compensation, Education, and Employment Amendments of 1980

 

Bite-sized changes

After these changes, the law remained static for awhile. In 1991, the law was renumbered (from § 2012 of Title 38 to § 4212), and in 1994 Congress deleted some language that exempted senior executive positions from Subsection D reporting. The next amendment did not come until 1998, with Section seven of the Veterans Employment Opportunities Act (Public Law 105–339). Those who fought in the First Gulf War were added to VEVRAA’s protections, as well as any veteran “who served on active duty during a war or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized.” The next expansion was in 2001, with the Veterans Benefits and Health Care Improvement Act (Public Law 106–419). Section 322 added VEVRAA protections for peacetime non-disabled veterans within one year of discharge.

A big update came in 2002, with Section Two of the Jobs for Veterans Act (Public Law 107–288). Paragraph (a), about qualifying contractors, received a significant update. The only other noteworthy change was that it expanded protections for peacetime, non-disabled veterans from one year after discharge to three years.

The most recent amendment to VEVRAA was in 2012 with Section 708 of the Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act (Pubic Law 112–154). All that HAVCCLFA did was to require data related Paragraph (d), on positions held by veterans, to be published online.

Leaving our Battle Buddies behind

Once peacetime non-disabled veterans reach the three year mark from discharge, they are excluded from VEVRAA. According to The National Center for Veterans Analysis & Statistics (NCVAS) “Veteran Population Projection Model,” there were 4,673,664 American peacetime veterans in 2016. The next year, NCVAS released a demographic snapshot titled “Key Statistics by Veteran Status and Period of Service,” which showed that only 10.8% of peacetime veterans (504,755 individuals) had a service-connected disability that qualified them as a “protected veteran” under VEVRAA. That means that the remaining 4,168,908 veterans, or 20.4% of the entire veteran population, are excluded from VEVRAA simply because they 1) did not serve in war and 2) did not have a service connected disability.

VEVRAA Complaints (update)

The only agency tasked with tracking employment discrimination against veterans isn’t doing its job.

*This post has been updated here.

A few months ago I wrote about the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), a 1972 law that creates limited affirmative action for some veterans. Enforcement of VEVRAA falls to the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contracts, Compliance, and Programs (OFCCP). I‘ve decided to update the article because two things happened: DoL published their 2019 Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS) report to Congress, and I acquired a large complaint dataset through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

As I’ve written already, the VETS reports are not giving the information they are obligated to provide to Congress. 38 U.S.C. § 4212(c) requires DoL to tell Congress “the number of complaints filed… the actions taken thereon and the resolutions thereof.” From 2012 to 2016, these reports included 1) the total number of OFCCP complaints “processed,” 2) the number of those that were VEVRAA complaints, and 3) a percentage.

This information is vague and possibly misleading. Not only does it not detail what actions OFCCP has taken or any resolutions arrived at, reports do not define what is meant by “total complaints” — is this number the total number of VEVRAA complaints filed (and does that include complaints that were never investigated because they were withdrawn or found to be outside OFCCP jurisdiction?), or does it refer to the total number of complaints filed under any statute OFCCP enforces? The reports don’t say.

Starting in 2016, the VETS reports have omitted any mention of “total complaints.” The 2019 report follows this pattern, stating simply, “OFCCP processed 179 complaints on the basis of VEVRAA.” Based on the VETS reports from 2012 to 2019, one might be lead to believe that VEVRAA complaints only amount to about one in every ten complaints.

As before, the 2019 report doesn’t seem to match any known dataset. DoL enforcement data for OFCCP shows that there were 89 total complaints closed in 2019, 23 (25.84%) of which were under VEVRAA. As for the 2012 to 2018 reports, this is how they might have read if that dataset were used;

  • 2012: 47 VEVRAA complaints, accounting for 32.19% of the 176 total complaints

  • 2013: 86 VEVRAA complaints, accounting for 37.06% of the 232 total complaints

  • 2014: 28 VEVRAA complaints, accounting for 18.91% of the 148 total complaints

  • 2015: 32 VEVRAA complaints, accounting for 28.07% of the 114 total complaints

  • 2016: 50 VEVRAA complaints, accounting for 34.01% of the 147 total complaints

  • 2017: 37 VEVRAA complaints, accounting for 35.23% of the 105 total complaints

  • 2018: 35 VEVRAA complaints, accounting for 31.25% of the 112 total complaints

Comparing FOIA-disclosed data to information provided to Congress.

 

Comparing FOIA-disclosed data to information provided to Congress.

 

According to data I acquired through a Freedom of Information Act request, OFCCP goes through more VEVRAA complaints every year. The FOIA dump contained detailed data from 2004 to 2014, and the DoL’s “Data Enforcement” webpage provides a complete series of datasets to fill out the rest through 2019. During that time OFCCP processed 2,168 total complaints, 781 of which were under VEVRAA. That means over a 16 year average, VEVRAA complaints made up 36% of all complaints to OFCCP.

VEVRAA investigations make up the majority of OFCCP’s caseload.

The FOIA data reveals that VEVRAA complaints make up the majority of cases processed and closed by OFCCP. This is why the Congressional VETS reports may appear to be misleading, since they seem to suggest VEVRAA complaints make up less than one in ten processed by the agency. However, despite being the largest group of complaints, OFCCP found VEVRAA violations at a rate far less than other statutes.

Broken down by complaint type, OFCCP found in favor of complainants much less often when it was a VEVRAA complaint. Claims under two laws, Executive Order 11246 (EO11246) and Section 503 (§ 503) of the Rehabilitation Act, returned violations at a rate of 11.33% and 9.81%, respectively. OFCCP found violations in “Other” complaint investigations at a rate of 13.33%. But OCFFP only found violations in just 6.79% of VEVRAA complaint investigations.

To understand how lenient OFCCP is to employers facing accusations of discrimination against protected veterans, we can compare the agency to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The EEOC found accusations to have merit an average of 17.33% of the time over the same sixteen year period covered by the FOIA release. With an average of just 9.23%, OFCCP is much more strict, and therefore friendly to employers, than EEOC.

VEVRAA investigations are disproportionately found to be without merit.

Although the data being provided to Congress by the VETS reports may not be technically false (we would need more information to confirm their veracity), they are definitely not complete. It is clear that the statutory obligations of 38 U.S.C. § 4212 are not being met.

One important take away, perhaps the most important, is that nobody knows the true extent of harassment, bias, and discrimination against veterans in employment because the only agency tasked with tracking and sharing this data to Congress is not doing so. What the FOIA release reveals is that the majority of OFCCP investigations are VEVRAA complaints, even though protected veterans’ are disproportionately told that their claims have no merit.

VEVRAA Complaints

OFCCP is withholding damning information about discrimination complaints by protected veterans.

**This story has been updated here and here.

The Department of Labor is supposed to enforce affirmative action for veterans under a 1972 law known as the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act, or VEVRAA. The law, 38 USC § 4212, does not protect peacetime non-disabled veterans, and it only applies to employers with government contracts. Processing VEVRAA complaints falls to DoL’s Office of Federal Contracts Compliance Program (OFCCP).

VEVRAA requires the DoL to submit an annual report to Congress on “the number of complaints filed… the actions taken thereon and the resolutions thereof.” OFCCP is supposed to share enforcement data with the Veterans Employment and Training Service (VETS), which then prepares and files the Congressional reports. VETS reports from 2012 to 2018 are available online here.

DoL has been telling Congress that veterans protected by VEVRAA have filed less than one in ten OFCCP complaints. None of these reports include data on actions taken or resolutions reached, and these reports do not match with other datasets.

The DoL’s “Data Enforcement” webpage provides a far more complete series of datasets that contradict the reports sent to Congress. According to DoL’s “Compliance Evaluation and Complaint Investigation (CECI) Data,” not only are there far more veterans filing VEVRAA complaints, but veterans’ claims are also twice as likely to be denied as other complaints OFCCP processes.

Here is what DoL VETS has been telling Congress about OFCCP enforcement, with links to the reports being quoted:

  • “In FY 2012, OFCCP processed 66 complaints filed under VEVRAA, accounting for 8 percent of the 780 total complaints processed by the Agency during the year.”

  • “In FY 2013, OFCCP processed 53 complaints filed under VEVRAA, accounting for 6.7 percent of the 790 total complaints processed by the Agency during the year.”

  • “In FY 2014, OFCCP processed 45 complaints filed under VEVRAA, accounting for 6.4 percent of the 699 total complaints processed by OFCCP during the year.”

  • “In FY 2015, OFCCP processed 54 complaints filed under VEVRAA, accounting for 8.2 percent of the 655 total complaints processed by OFCCP during the year.”

  • 2016 report: “OFCCP processed 53 complaints filed under VEVRAA in FY 2016.”

  • “In FY 2017… OFCCP processed 124 complaints on the basis of VEVRAA.”

  • “In FY 2018… OFCCP processed 132 complaints on the basis of VEVRAA.”

According to the CECI data, each of these years saw many more VEVRAA complaints filed. Here is what those reports would have said based on the more detailed datasets:

  • In 2013, OFFCP processed 86 complaints filed under VEVRAA, accounting for 37.07% of the 232 total complaints processed by OFCCP during the year.

  • In 2014 it was 28 VEVRAA complaints, or 18.92% of 148 total complaints.

  • In 2015 it was 32 VEVRAA complaints, or 28.07% of 114 total complaints.

  • In 2016 it was 50 VEVRAA complaints, or 34.01% of 147 total complaints.

  • In 2017 it was 37 VEVRAA complaints, or 35.24% of 105 total compaints.

  • In 2018 it was 35 VEVRAA complaints, or 31.25% of 112 total complaints.

  • In 2019 it was 23 VEVRAA complaints, or 25.84% of 89 total complaints.

 

How have VEVRAA complaints been trending over time? It depends on which data set you follow.

 

All told, according to FOIA, there were 2168 complaints “closed” by OFCCP from 2004 to 2019. Nearly one in three of those, or 30.73%, were filed under VEVRAA. Congress, however, is being told that the number of VEVRAA complaints “processed” is less than one in ten.

The CECI data possesses incredible detail, including respondent names and information on violations found and the bases for each complaint. Because the violation data is preserved, we can also determine how often OFCCP finds in favor of veterans and/or VEVRAA complaints, and this is where the picture gets worse.

Taken as a whole, the CECI data shows an agency that is generally lenient. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), for example, found in favor of complainants 16.52% of the time, whereas OFCCP found violations as a result of 9.23% of all complaints. Since EEOC does not protect veterans, we can remove the VEVRAA complaints for the sake of a more direct comparison. In that case, OFCCP finds violations in 14.74% of complaints.

Broken down by complaint type, OFCCP found in favor of complainants much less often when it was a VEVRAA complaint. Claims under two laws, Executive Order 11246 (EO11246) and Section 503 (§ 503) of the Rehabilitation Act, returned violations at a rate of 15.52% and 13.9%, respectively. OFCCP found violations in “Other” complaint investigations at a rate of 19.23%. But when veterans filed discrimination complaints under VEVRAA, OCFFP only found violations in 7.22% of them.

Can it be true that veterans file false or meritless complaints at a greater rate than other groups? Or is it more likely that DoL is failing to provide equal protection under federal law? If the latter is the case, then it goes a long way to explain why Congress is not being given the whole picture when it comes to 38 USC § 4212.