A Texas federal court has weighed in on how far the EEOC can go when interpreting Title VII. Spoiler alert: it didn’t go well for the EEOC. TL;DR: A Texas federal court just vacated the parts of the EEOC’s new harassment guidance that deal with gender identity. The judge held…
After months of legal gridlock, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is about to get its quorum back—and a Republican majority with it. TL;DR: President Trump has nominated Brittany Bull Panuccio to serve as the third commissioner on the EEOC. Her confirmation would restore the Commission’s quorum and create a 2–1…
This week, lawmakers in both the House and Senate reintroduced the Equality Act, a bill that would explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity across numerous areas of federal law. Although the bill has strong Democratic support, it lacks bipartisan backing—and given the political composition of Congress…
“We are terminating you for ‘denying biological and chromosomal sex assigned at birth.’” That’s what a transgender woman alleges HR told her when she was fired from her job at a religious university. In response, she sued for sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.…
On Saturday, the Associated Press reported that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) moved to drop several lawsuits related to gender identity discrimination. Let’s examine what caused this change in direction and the implications for employers. Why the EEOC Filed the Lawsuits In one case filed last June, the EEOC…
Earlier this week, I searched for LGBTQ+ resources on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) website. On Google, I found a page titled “Moving Towards Equality in the Workplace for LGBTQI+ Employees.” But when I clicked the link, I got an error message: “The requested page could not be…
Yesterday, President Trump appointed Andrea Lucas as the Acting Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), signaling notable changes for the agency tasked with enforcing federal anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. Lucas brings a clear set of priorities to address workplace discrimination. Here’s what HR professionals, employment lawyers,…
In 2015, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined that a federal agency that denied an employee equal access to a common bathroom/facility corresponding to the employee’s gender identity discriminated based on sex and could not restrict a transgender employee to a single-user restroom. About five years later, the Supreme…
In the past week, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has brought two lawsuits against employers that allegedly violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against transgender employees. In one of the lawsuits, the EEOC claims that a transgender employee complained that she believed a manager had…
If your business provides a self-funded health insurance plan to its employees, that health plan covers “medically necessary” services, and you’re not keen on defending sex discrimination claims, then keep reading. Yesterday, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that an employer cannot exclude coverage for…