The following article first appeared in the Insights section of Littler Mendelson’s website. It is reposted here with permission.
On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced that it had rescinded two documents relating to permissible affirmative action under Title VII of the U.S. Civil Rights Act: (1) its regulatory guidelines on “appropriate” affirmative action under the statute; and (2) section 607 of its Compliance Manual, which addressed those guidelines and the agency’s enforcement positions with respect to permissible affirmative action and affirmative action plans.
Both the guidelines and the related portion of the Compliance Manual explained that voluntary affirmative action plans were only permitted under federal equal employment opportunity laws when designed to remedy past or present discrimination or to address manifest imbalances in traditionally segregated job categories and carefully structured to avoid unlawfully disadvantaging other employees.
The documents emphasized that to be lawful, a plan had to be temporary, flexible, and narrowly tailored, and could not unnecessarily trammel the rights of non‑beneficiaries.
Overall, the documents focused on ensuring that affirmative action efforts remedied past or present discrimination without creating new discrimination.
Perhaps most significantly, they provided a safe harbor under section 713(b)(1) of the Civil Rights Act, which states that an employer may defend itself in an...
The Ghana Police Service has announced that TikToker Camila Alhassan, who was sentenced to one year imprisonment with hard labour for offensive conduct, will be arraigned before the High Court on ...