He is a private investor and business consultant in the Washington, D.C. area, a director of Prudential Financial, trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, and advisor to Toyota Motor North America, T-Mobile US, and Comcast Corporation.
Gilbert F. Casellas was born and raised in the Ybor City section of Tampa, Florida, and attended the segregated St. Peter Claver School until he was twelve years old.
[1][2] Following law school, Casellas served a two-year clerkship with the Honorable A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
[1][2][3] In 1985, he was appointed by the federal court to serve as a receiver to negotiate and settle fee disputes in three job discrimination class action lawsuits by Latinos against the City of Philadelphia's Police and Fire Departments.
[2] With Court approval, in 1986 he directed a portion of the proceeds from the successful fee resolution of those class actions to establish a scholarship for Latino law students at the University of Pennsylvania and personally supplemented the fund in 2008.
[4][5] In 1993, Casellas was appointed by President Bill Clinton and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as General Counsel of the United States Department of the Air Force.
[2] As EEOC chairman, Casellas led broad changes in the way the Commission does business, including streamlining its case-handling system, expanding the use of alternative dispute resolution, forging a new and productive partnership with nearly 100 state and local fair employment practices agencies, and developing practical policy guidelines on applying the EEO laws to the workplace.
[12] In accepting his resignation with regret, President Bill Clinton stated that "you have helped restore Americans' trust that the EEOC is an agency dedicated to providing prompt and fair enforcement of civil rights laws.
That February 22, 1999, story noted that "Much of the credit for the commission's resurrection has gone to Mr. Casellas, who presided over an overhaul beginning about five years ago to bring down the backlog, promoted alternative ways to resolve disputes, including mediation and arbitration, and looked to file high-profile lawsuits against companies that jolted other companies into becoming aware of the practices that often spawned discrimination complaints….That the agency is being looked on more favorably is, to some longtime observers in the field, nothing short of amazing.
[17] A detailed account of the activities and accomplishments of the Presidential members is contained in the final report to Congress dated September 1, 2001, and is archived at http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/cmb/cmbp/.
In January 1999, he left the practice of law when he was named president of The Swarthmore Group, Inc., a registered investment advisory firm.
[21] From 2001 through 2006, Casellas also served as a court-appointed member of the Oversight Task Force that monitored the terms of the $192.5 million race discrimination class action settlement by The Coca-Cola Company.
[30] In a January 16, 2013, letter to President Obama, a coalition of thirty of the largest and most influential Latino civil rights and advocacy organizations included his name among 19 potential candidates for cabinet posts.
[2] During his years as a practicing lawyer in Philadelphia, he served as a Lecturer-in-Law at the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, teaching courses on trial and appellate advocacy.
[35] From 2005 through 2008, he chaired the board of directors of the Hispanic Federation, Inc., an umbrella organization whose 100 member agencies serve the health and human service needs of over one million Latinos in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
Due to a decades long stagnant budget, the EEOC now uses the policy to discharge complaints it can no longer afford to investigate.