This week, the Equal Employment Alternative Fee rescinded its steering on office harassment, in a transfer that might considerably undermine protections for all employees, however particularly those that establish as LGBTQ+. The company, which performs a vital function because the federal watchdog that enforces anti-discrimination legal guidelines governing the office, voted on Thursday to strike down steering that had been codified in 2024, throughout the Biden administration.
Throughout practically 200 pages, the doc provided an essential replace to the EEOC’s language on harassment—which had not been up to date in over 20 years—and in addition included a key Supreme Courtroom ruling in 2020 that prolonged anti-discrimination protections to LGBTQ+ employees. The steering included over 70 examples of office discrimination that staff would possibly encounter, with a piece devoted to sexual orientation and gender identification. Earlier than releasing the ultimate model again in 2024, there was a customary discover and remark course of on the proposed doc, throughout which the company fielded over 38,000 feedback from the general public. All that steering has now been scrapped, with no room for public touch upon the choice. (The harassment doc has since been taken down and is now not accessible to the general public.)
EEOC chair Andrea Lucas instructed that this could not change how the company approached harassment claims. “Let me be completely clear: The EEOC won’t tolerate illegal harassment, as was the case earlier than the steering doc was issued and can stay so even after the steering doc is rescinded,” she mentioned during an open meeting on Thursday.
Nonetheless, this reversal is a giant loss for employees, who stay protected by federal anti-discrimination legal guidelines however rely closely on the company once they encounter harassment within the office. Individuals who expertise office discrimination usually must file a criticism with the company earlier than taking any form of authorized motion. By rescinding this steering, the EEOC has stripped away an essential useful resource for employees (and employers) who’re making an attempt to grasp what constitutes office harassment—and what they will do about it.
This choice additionally cements a seismic shift within the company’s priorities since Lucas took the helm. Below the Trump administration, the EEOC has undergone changes that consultants consider have compromised its mission to guard employees’ rights. After assuming workplace, Trump instantly fired two EEOC commissioners—Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows—earlier than their time period limits had been up, breaking with precedent and eliminating the Democratic majority. (Commissioners of federal companies are often allowed to serve out their phrases, no matter political affiliation.) He later nominated Brittany Panuccio to hitch the fee; her affirmation in October secured a Republican majority and restored the three-person quorum required for the company to revise steering or pursue sure forms of litigation.
During the last yr, the Trump administration’s assaults on variety, fairness, and inclusion within the office have reshaped the company’s priorities. Lucas has explicitly acknowledged that the company would give attention to “rooting out illegal DEI-motivated race and intercourse discrimination” in accordance with Trump’s government orders focusing on DEI packages. Again in December, Lucas even put out a call for white males to report office discrimination and probably recuperate damages. (This took the type of a video on X, by which Lucas requested: “Are you a white male who has skilled discrimination at work primarily based in your race or intercourse?”)
Revoking the harassment steering, nevertheless, appears to align with a broader agenda to curtail protections for LGBTQ+ and trans employees. A federal ruling final yr struck down the part of the EEOC’s harassment doc that utilized to transgender and gender-nonconforming employees, claiming the company didn’t have the authority to impose these pointers on employers; the part acknowledged, for instance, that misgendering staff or denying them entry to loos according to their gender identification certified as office harassment. Final yr, the EEOC additionally dropped six cases that concerned allegations of discrimination from trans or gender-nonconforming employees.
Even previous to the Trump administration’s directives, nevertheless, Lucas was a dissenting voice on the fee. When the harassment steering was finalized in 2024, Lucas had taken subject with the part that outlined protections for trans and gender-nonconforming employees and in the end voted towards it, below the guise of defending ladies’s rights within the office. Lucas echoed anti-trans sentiment by noting “organic intercourse is actual” and “binary,” suggesting that ladies can be harmed by the up to date steering. “Ladies’s sex-based rights within the office are below assault—and from the EEOC, the very federal company charged with defending ladies from sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination at work,” she wrote in a statement on the time. “Ladies within the office can pay the worth for the Fee’s egregious error.”
By rescinding the harassment steering outright, nevertheless, Lucas has successfully weakened anti-discrimination protections for all types of employees—ladies included.
