The EEOC and your workplace rights with cancer

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, enforces federal laws against workplace discrimination. One of those laws is the Americans with Disabilities Act, the ADA. The EEOC publishes guidance written specifically about cancer in the workplace and the ADA, and it is worth reading in your own words rather than hearing about secondhand.

The reason cancer comes up under a disability law surprises some people. The ADA is not only about permanent physical limits. It covers conditions that substantially limit a major life activity, and it also covers people with a record of such a condition. Under that framing, the EEOC's guidance treats people with current cancer, cancer in remission, and a history of cancer as generally protected.

The EEOC separates the hiring timeline into stages.

Before a job offer, an employer cannot ask about a cancer diagnosis, treatment, or medical history. It can ask job-related questions, such as whether you can perform the physical tasks the job requires.

After a job offer, an employer may ask health questions or require a medical exam, as long as everyone offered the same position is treated the same way.

Once you are working, an employer may ask about a medical condition only in narrower circumstances, such as when it has noticed performance problems and reasonably believes a medical condition is causing them.

This is the part that changes daily life. The EEOC's guidance says an employer must provide a reasonable accommodation needed because of limitations caused by the cancer itself, the side effects of medication or treatment, or both.

The examples the guidance gives will sound familiar to anyone in treatment:

• Leave for appointments and treatment
• A flexible or modified work schedule
• A private place to rest
• Working remotely
• Shifting some tasks to others

Notice what the list is. It is not a set of favors. It is a set of ordinary adjustments that let a qualified person keep doing the job.

The EEOC says employers must keep medical information confidential. It describes limited exceptions, such as telling supervisors what they need to know to provide an accommodation, informing first aid personnel, and responding to officials investigating legal compliance.

So a manager may need to know you require a schedule change. That is different from your coworkers knowing your diagnosis.

Three concrete things.

It can inform you. The guidance is free, public, and written in question-and-answer form. Reading it before a conversation with human resources changes how that conversation goes.

It can take your inquiry. The EEOC lists a public phone line, 1-800-669-4000, a TTY line, an ASL video line, and an email address. Contact details do change, so check the current details on its site.

It can accept a charge of discrimination. The EEOC says a person who believes their employment rights were violated may file a charge, and that time limits apply. Its cancer guidance describes a filing window of 180 days from the alleged discrimination, or 300 days in some states. For most laws the EEOC enforces, you must file a charge before you can bring a job discrimination lawsuit. If little time is left, the EEOC's public portal offers help filing quickly.

After a charge is filed, the EEOC notifies the employer. It may investigate, dismiss the charge, or offer mediation or another route to resolution.

It is not your lawyer. The EEOC investigates and enforces; it does not represent you as private counsel.

It cannot order your employer to give you the exact accommodation you want. Reasonable accommodation is a process with limits, and what is reasonable depends on the job and the workplace.

It cannot help with a workplace the law does not reach. The ADA applies to covered employers, so very small employers may fall outside it.

It cannot promise a fast answer. Charges take time, and deadlines are strict in the other direction, which is why the filing window matters so much.

And it cannot tell you what to do about your own case. Nothing here is legal advice. Confirm how these rules apply to your situation with the EEOC or an employment lawyer.

You do not have to open with the law. Most accommodation requests are granted without anyone citing a statute. A short, specific request usually works better than a long explanation: what you need, for how long, and how the work still gets done.

Keep your medical details minimal. Your employer generally needs to know what you cannot do right now and what would help, not the details of your pathology report.

Write things down. Send the request by email even if you also say it out loud. Keep the reply. If a schedule is agreed on, put it in writing.

And know where the line is. If a request is ignored, if you are punished for asking, or if you are pushed out after disclosing a diagnosis, that is the moment to look at the EEOC's deadlines rather than waiting to see if things improve. Time limits do not pause while you hope.