A hostile work environment complaint against the EEOC will try out a new employment law approach to challenging the commission’s rollback of its protections for transgender workers.
Ex-Equal Employment Opportunity Commission employee Marc Seawright says the agency’s erasure of transgender bias protections internally, as well as its pause on processing such discrimination charges from the public, bolster his bias claims.
The wide-ranging federal equal opportunity complaint confronts several aspects of the EEOC’s stance on transgender workers under Acting Chair Andrea Lucas. Unlike other challenges to the Trump-era shift that leverage administrative law questions, Seawright’s allegations—recently made public—use the same employment law the EEOC enforces.
Part of Seawright’s challenge will be to “tie overarching policies” that changed at the EEOC to an impact on his ability to do his job, said Jackson Lewis attorney Richard Mrizek.
Seawright’s complaint cites changes that caused him “severe distress, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, anger, and sadness.”
That totality of circumstances created a hostile work environment for him and other LGBTQ+ employees in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the complaint said.
Hostile work environment claims are weighed on severity and pervasiveness of discriminatory or harassing acts. Less severe, but more frequent action could also constitute a hostile work environment, Mrizek said.
An EEOC spokesperson said the...
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