Supreme Court seems troubled by job bias cases

The AP reports:

The Supreme Court seemed troubled Tuesday by the Obama administration's aggressive defense of its strategy for targeting job discrimination in the workplace.

Several justices said courts should have some oversight to make sure the government is diligently trying to settle cases before taking companies to court.

The dispute pits the administration against business groups that say the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is too quick to bring expensive lawsuits against companies instead of trying to negotiate settlements.

Federal law requires the EEOC to try informally settling cases first, but the question is how much can a court peer into those negotiations to make sure the EEOC is not unreasonable.

The government insists that courts should have no role in probing confidential settlement talks, while business groups want to be able to raise any ineffective settlement effort as a defense.

The EEOC thinks it is above the law.