Workplace Discrimination Lawyer Austin: Which Agency, and What Changes If It’s Harassment

The first practical decision in a Texas discrimination case is not what happened to you. It is where the paperwork goes. A workplace discrimination lawyer Austin employees consult has to settle that first. Two agencies take these charges, and they run on different deadlines. In one corner of the law, they also use different definitions of who counts as an employer at all.

Where a workplace discrimination lawyer Austin workers consult files the charge

Two doors exist. One is the Texas Workforce Commission’s civil rights division, which administers Chapter 21 of the Labor Code. The other is the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Chapter 21 is the state statute. Section 21.051 makes it an unlawful employment practice if, “because of race, color, disability, religion, sex, national origin, or age,” an employer “fails or refuses to hire an individual, discharges an individual, or discriminates in any other manner against an individual in connection with compensation or the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.” The section also reaches limiting, segregating or classifying employees in ways that cost them opportunity.

Then comes the state deadline. Section 21.202(a) requires a complaint “not later than the 180th day after the date the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred.” After filing, section 21.201(d) gives the agency 10 days to serve the respondent with the perfected complaint. Section 21.208 covers the other end. The commission must tell you if it dismisses your complaint, or if it has not resolved it before the 181st day.

Travis County has no EEOC office of its own

There is no EEOC office in Austin. Travis County falls inside the jurisdiction of the EEOC’s San Antonio Field Office. That office in turn sits under the Dallas District Office. So an Austin worker who expects to walk a charge into a downtown federal office will not find one.

The federal side of the case is therefore administered from another city. Correspondence and investigator assignments run through San Antonio. That is separate from the Austin federal courthouse on West 5th Street, which is where a lawsuit, rather than a charge, would land if the case reached the Western District of Texas.

Why 300 days is the federal number here

The EEOC states its own rule plainly. “In general, you need to file a charge within 180 calendar days from the day the discrimination took place. The 180 calendar day filing deadline is extended to 300 calendar days if a state or local agency enforces a law that prohibits employment discrimination on the same basis.”

Texas has such an agency. The Texas Workforce Commission’s civil rights division enforces Chapter 21. That chapter prohibits discrimination on the same bases the federal statutes cover. So the 300-day figure applies to a federal charge arising in Austin.

Age claims carry a wrinkle, though. The extension to 300 days depends on a state law and a state agency. A local ordinance on age discrimination does not produce the extension by itself.

Ask for dual filing; do not assume it

One agency will often cross-file a charge with the other. Most people call that dual filing. But treat it as a request rather than a reflex. Ask expressly for the charge to be dual filed, then confirm with the agency that it happened.

The reason is arithmetic. A single charge may be carrying both a 180-day state deadline and a 300-day federal one. If that assumption turns out to be wrong, a claim disappears. Confirmation costs a phone call.

Subchapter C-1 changes who counts as an employer

Now the second half, and the sharper one. Sexual harassment claims in Texas live in Subchapter C-1 of that same Chapter 21. However, the subchapter carries its own definitions. It is a different statute wearing the same chapter number.

Start with the ordinary rule. Section 21.002(8)(A) defines an employer as “a person who is engaged in an industry affecting commerce and who has 15 or more employees for each working day in each of 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.” Fourteen employees, and the ordinary Chapter 21 claim has no employer to run against.

Now the harassment rule. Section 21.141(1) defines an employer, for that subchapter, as a person who “employs one or more employees.” It also covers a person who “acts directly in the interests of an employer in relation to an employee.”

One employee. Not fifteen, and no 20-week counting exercise. A four-person design studio in East Austin falls outside the ordinary definition. The same studio falls squarely inside the harassment one. That gap between 15 and 1 is the sharpest thing on this page.

Why a workplace discrimination lawyer Austin employees hire treats harassment separately

The deadline moves as well. Section 21.202(a-1) says a complaint “alleging sexual harassment must be filed not later than the 300th day after the date the alleged sexual harassment occurred.” That is 300 days at the state level. Ordinary complaints get 180 under section 21.202(a).

So the two halves of Chapter 21 diverge twice over. Different employer, different clock, same chapter number.

Knew or should have known

The liability standard is its own departure. Section 21.142 provides that an employer commits an unlawful employment practice if sexual harassment occurs and the employer, its agents or its supervisors “know or should have known that the conduct constituting sexual harassment was occurring” and “fail to take immediate and appropriate corrective action.”

Read the two halves together. Knowledge can be constructive — should have known. Meanwhile the required response is immediate and appropriate. An employer who heard about conduct and then opened a leisurely process is answering to both words.

What a workplace discrimination lawyer Austin case faces after the agency stage

Chapter 21 sets the back end as firmly as the front. Section 21.254 gives a complainant 60 days to sue after a notice of the right to file a civil action arrives. Section 21.256 then provides that a civil action “may not be brought under this subchapter later than the second anniversary of the date the complaint relating to the action is filed.”

Local law will not soften any of that. Labor Code section 1.005 bars a municipality or county from adopting or enforcing an ordinance “regulating conduct in a field of regulation that is occupied by a provision of this code.” The Legislature added it in 2023. A 2025 Texas Third Court of Appeals decision reversed a challenge to that statute on standing grounds, without reaching the merits.

The bottom line

People usually treat the agency question and the harassment question as separate topics. They are not. A four-person Austin employer has no exposure under section 21.051. That same employer has full exposure under section 21.142, on a 300-day clock instead of a 180-day one, for conduct it merely should have known about. Workers at small employers are the likeliest to assume the law does not reach them. In the one area where Texas law reaches furthest down, that assumption runs exactly backwards.

Keep reading: At Will Employment Arizona: What It Means and Its Real Exceptions and FMLA Arizona: How Family and Medical Leave Protections Actually Apply.

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This article is general information about Texas workplace discrimination law and agency filing procedures, and is not legal advice. Filing deadlines are short and unforgiving, and the facts of a particular claim matter. For guidance on your own situation, consult a licensed Texas attorney.

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