The nation’s top workplace civil rights agency reopened with its quorum restored after the longest federal shutdown in U.S. history ended Nov. 12. It’s the start of a new era for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of the second Trump administration — though the commission remains a wildcard for labor and employment watchers.
EEOC’s old playbook for enforcing antidiscrimination is “being thrown out the window,” said Gerald Maatman, partner at Duane Morris, as exemplified by the agency’s recent retreat from disparate-impact discrimination claims. This alone represents a huge shift in EEOC’s enforcement strategy, Maatman added, and it could result in the agency filing fewer systemic discrimination lawsuits, which frequently invoke disparate-impact theory, on behalf of large groups of employees.
“That’s going to have a huge impact on its docket, the way it investigates cases and certainly would suggest that the days of the really big cases involving hundreds of thousands of people are numbered,” Maatman said.
It’s one of several changes made in response to an executive order by President Donald Trump, who has tasked EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas and other federal agency heads with reversing Biden-era antidiscrimination priorities. Attorneys who spoke to HR Dive expect the agency’s 2-1 Republican majority to act swiftly in pursuit of the administration’s priorities.
EEOC’s shift on diversity, equity and inclusion programs was already apparent with Lucas issuing...
Rod Stewart has hit out at US President Donald Trump over his false claims about British troops in Afghanistan. The rock star has urged UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Reform UK leader Nigel Fa...