EEOC

EEOC Chair Warns Companies Against Discriminatory DEI Policies

Andrea Lucas, chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), sent a letter to all Fortune 500 companies reminding them to treat all employees equally – regardless of race.

The letter, sent on February 26, reminds the employers of over 30 million Americans of their Title VII obligations with respect to employment policies, programs and practices related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

“I urge Corporate America to reject identity politics as its solution to society’s ills,” said Chair Lucas. “The only lawful way to stop discrimination on the basis of race or sex, is to stop discriminating on the basis of race or sex.”

The EEOC is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights laws (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) that protect job applicants and employees from discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age and disability.

President Donald J. Trump nominated Andrea Lucas to serve on the EEOC in his first term and designated her as chair of the committee on November 5, 2025. The five-person commission currently has three members including Chair Lucas; Brittany Panuccio, a nominee of President Trump; and Kalpana Kotagal, a nominee of former President Joe Biden.

The EEOC letter states that the agency’s mission “goes to the heart of the foundational beliefs and promises of our nation, namely that: all Americans are inherently created equal; all citizen are entitled to equal treatment under law; … and all Americans have the right to be treated in the workplaces as individuals … and judged only by the content of their character, skills, and abilities, rather than by the color of their skin.”

The letter criticizes recent “movements and ideologies” that “elevate group rights over individual rights; demand equal outcomes over equal treatment and equal opportunity; and, most absurdly, twist our nation’s civil rights laws to promote discrimination against certain races or groups.”

“The EEOC stands ready to combat such discrimination and protect each worker’s individual rights to be judged on merit,” the letter states.

It concludes,

As we celebrate the 250th Anniversary of our Nation’s founding, let us affirm our shared commitment to operating workplaces where every American worker has an equal opportunity to succeed, without regard to the color of their skin or their sex.

The EEOC and Department of Justice created a joint one-page document, “What To Do If You Experience Discrimination Related to DEI at Work,” to help educate the public about how civil rights rules apply to employment policies, programs and practices.

The EEOC also released a longer question-and-answer document, “What You Should Know About DEI-Related Discrimination at Work,” to help Americans understand their rights.

Lucas said,

Protecting workers begins with preventing discrimination. The EEOC is committed to helping businesses comply with the law. Hiring workers based on their merit, excellence, and character — not skin color or sex — is the right thing to do and benefits employers and employees alike.

An increasing number of large companies adopted DEI policies in recent years, with hundreds submitting their “DEI commitments” to the leftist Human Rights Campaign to include in its Corporate Equality Index.

But that has begun to change. The number of Fortune 500 companies that chose to voluntarily submit their DEI policies for evaluation in the index declined by 65% from 2025 to 2026, falling from 376 to just 131.

As millions of customers became more vocally opposed to DEI initiatives, many companies have responded. Corporations like Walmart and Harley-Davidson have voluntarily dropped their DEI initiatives.

In an exclusive interview with the Daily Citizen in February, Lucas told us the EEOC will crack down on any DEI policy “whenever it involves race or sex discrimination.”

“To the extent any employment policy,” Lucas added, “whether it’s a DEI, Belonging, or Inclusion Policy, if it is functioning to engage in race or sex discrimination, that’s unlawful.”

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EEOC Protects Women’s Spaces in Federal Workplaces

Andrea Lucas Leads the EEOC: Restoring Agency With Truth and Common Sense

Photo from Shutterstock.

EEOC Protects Women’s Spaces in Federal Workplaces

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on Thursday voted to protect women’s intimate spaces – including bathrooms and locker rooms – in federal workplaces.

The EEOC voted 2-1 to affirm an appellate decision holding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 doesn’t allow males to access women’s private spaces.

“Today’s opinion is consistent with the plain meaning of ‘sex’ as understood by Congress at the time Title VII was enacted, as well as longstanding civil rights principles: that similarly situated employees must be treated equally,” said EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas.

“When it comes to bathrooms, male and female employees are not similarly situated,” Lucas added. “Biology is not bigotry.”

Chair Lucas and Commissioner Brittany Panuccio, both nominees of President Donald J. Trump, voted in favor of the decision; Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, a nominee of former President Joseph R. Biden, dissented.

The EEOC held that “Title VII permits a federal agency employer to maintain single-sex bathrooms and similar intimate spaces” and that the law “permits a federal agency employer to exclude employees, including trans-identifying employees, from opposite-sex facilities.”

The case stems from a male Army civilian IT specialist at Fort Riley, Kansas who used the Army’s male-designated bathrooms and locker rooms without incident before beginning to identify as a woman in the summer of 2025. He then requested to use female-designated bathrooms and locker rooms.

Management denied his request citing an executive order signed by President Trump which specifies that “intimate spaces … are designate by sex and not identity.” The civilian filed an Equal Employment Opportunity complaint which the Army dismissed. The complainant appealed, but the EEOC affirmed the Army’s judgement.

In dissent, Commissioner Kotagal claimed without explanation that the decision “suggests that transgender people do not exist.” In reality, the decision simply protects women from being forced to share private spaces with men.

Kotagal argued that males who can’t access female restrooms “[matching] their gender identity … often starve and dehydrate themselves.”

Chai Feldblum, an LGBT activist who served as an EEOC commissioner after being nominated by former President Barack Obama, posted a comment on Kotagal’s LinkedIn page praising her dissent: “Thank you, as always, for your clear voice!”

Yet Commissioner Kotagal failed to consider how forcing women to share private spaces with males harms their privacy, dignity and safety.

The EEOC decision, in contrast, lays out those concerns in detail:

The interest in single-sex privacy is especially heightened for women attending to hygiene related to menstruation, pregnancy, or lactation. No man will ever experience a period, bear a child, or nurse and infant, and we do not think it improper that female employees would expect to manage their unique needs in a space accessible only to other women. …
Women have a vital privacy interest in using a workplace bathroom or similar intimate space outside the presence of men.

While the decision applies only to federal agencies, it nevertheless represents a remarkable shift at the EEOC. Just two years ago, the agency attempted to redefine “sex” in Title VII to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in its “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace.”

The change would have forced millions of American women to share private spaces with males in the workplace; required American workers to use their coworkers “preferred pronouns;” and qualified that “misgendering” or “deadnaming” a coworker creates a “hostile work environment.”

The updated guidance would have even applied to private sector employers, including faith-based employers like Focus on the Family.

In January 2026, the EEOC voted to rescind the updated Harassment Guidance after a newly-constituted Republican majority was established at the agency.

“The Harassment Guidance was an unlawful document and overstepped our authority,” Chair Lucas told the Daily Citizen in a recent interview. “There are two sexes.”

The case is Selina v. Driscoll.

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Photo from Shutterstock.

Andrea Lucas Leads the EEOC: Restoring Agency With Truth and Common Sense

Andrea Lucas, chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), has been handed the enormous responsibility of restoring the agency and ensuring it carries out its statutory mandate.

The EEOC

The EEOC, once led by Clarence Thomas, is a bipartisan commission composed of five members who are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. By statute, no more than three commissioners can be members of the same political party.

The agency is at its best when it carries out its legal mandate to ensure all Americans are treated equally under law. The EEOC is responsible for enforcing the nation’s employment laws which protect job applicants and employees from being discriminated against because of their race, color, religion, sex, age or disability.

Created by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the agency’s mission and scope have been modified multiple times by subsequent pieces of legislation.

The Obama and Biden administrations, however, transformed the agency into a center of leftist ideological activism. Until now.

Chair Lucas Takes the Helm

Lucas was nominated to serve as an EEOC commissioner by President Donald J. Trump during his first term and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 22, 2020, just a few months before former President Joseph R. Biden took office.

“It was a long time in the wilderness as a commissioner during the Biden administration,” Chair Lucas said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Citizen. “I like to joke that I was in, but not of, the Biden administration,” she quipped, referencing John 17: 14-19.

After President Trump’s second inauguration, Lucas was re-nominated for a second term and confirmed by the Senate on July 31, 2025. On November 5, President Trump designated her as chair of the EEOC to lead a newly established Republican majority on the commission.

EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas. Photo courtesy of the EEOC.

For much of Lucas’ time on the EEOC, the agency was run by a Democrat-nominated majority of commissioners. But the EEOC’s ideological activism extends even further back than the Biden administration.

EEOC’s Ideological Activism

When Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it created Title VII specifically to protect individuals from employment discrimination on the basis of “sex” – being male or female. Specifically, it was enacted to protect women from discrimination. Not transgender-identified or homosexual-identified individuals.

In 2010, former President Barack Obama nominated LGBT activist Chai Feldblum to fill a vacancy on the five-person EEOC commission. Once asked about what should happen when religious liberty and “sexual liberty” conflict, Feldblum conceded, “I’m having a hard time coming up with any case in which religious liberty should win.”

Commissioner Feldblum guided the EEOC on a course of using its own “guidance” letters and the court system to coerce and compel employers to redefine “sex” as “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” for purposes of Title VII. The EEOC went after employers for alleged discrimination against homosexual-identified and transgender-identified individuals.

As just one example, the EEOC sued Thomas Rost, owner of Harris Funeral Homes, a fifth generation family business, for firing a male employee named Anthony Stephens who refused to comply with the business’ sex-specific dress code after he began identifying as “transgender.”

The suit led to the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision in 2020, holding that Title VII prohibits employers from firing individuals for identifying as transgender or homosexual.

In effect, this undermined Congress’ legitimacy and ignored the original understanding of what “sex” means.

Under the Biden administration, it got worse. The EEOC attempted to essentially erase “sex” as a protected class altogether.

The Harassment Guidance

On April 29, 2024, the EEOC voted 3-2 to update its “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace” (Harassment Guidance) which would have officially redefined “sex” in Title VII to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”

The radical guidance would have ended many workplace protections for millions of Americans, especially women, by:

  • Ending sex-segregated spaces in workplaces by allowing transgender-identified employees to use whatever bathroom, locker room and shower they prefer.
  • Mandating millions of Americans speak in false and anti-scientific terms by requiring employees to refer to their coworkers using their “preferred pronouns.”
  • Specifying that intentionally and repeatedly “misgendering” or “deadnaming” a coworker creates a “hostile work environment.”

The guidance would have also made it more likely faith-based employers would be sued for not mandating “preferred pronoun” use or permitting males to access women’s spaces.

“The guidance made clear what the commission viewed as unlawful harassment,” Lucas told us, “And that increases the liability risk as a practical matter to every single employer, including faith-based employers.”

At the time, Commissioner Lucas courageously dissented from the agency’s decision.

“Women’s sex-based rights in the workplace are under attack – and from the EEOC, the very federal agency charged with protecting women from sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination at work,” Commissioner Lucas said after the guidance was released.

She added,

In issuing this guidance, the EEOC ignores biological reality; dismisses the sex-based privacy and safety needs of women; disregards decades of safeguarding principles for women and girls; and fundamentally betrays its mission.

Lucas admitted that, while being in the minority on the commission under the Biden administration was difficult, “I think it’s really important to dissent and to have used my bully pulpit for good.”

“The Harassment Guidance was an unlawful document and overstepped our authority,” she told us. “Biology is not bigotry. There are two sexes.”

Thankfully, the updated Harassment Guidance was quickly challenged in court and never enforced.

On January 22, 2026, the EEOC voted 2-1 to rescind the updated Harassment Guidance with Commissioner Brittany Panuccio, a nominee of President Trump, joining Chair Lucas in voting for the rescission, and Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, a nominee of former President Biden, dissenting. Two seats on the EEOC remain vacant.

No longer do Americans have to worry about their rights being attacked by the EEOC. With Chair Lucas at the helm, the EEOC is embarking on a much-needed course correction.

A New Day and New Priorities at the EEOC

Chair Lucas is proceeding with crucial priorities at the agency, protecting all people – including white males – from discrimination.

“Our doors are open for everyone,” Lucas said. “Our nation’s civil rights laws are race-neutral, sex-neutral and group-neutral under Title VII.”

“Despite that, in the last administration, and even for decades, there has been a strong presumption that the civil rights laws are only available for ‘minority workers’ or ‘historically underrepresented workers’ and not available to anybody who experiences race or sex discrimination,” she explained.

While the EEOC will continue to investigate discrimination that takes place against anyone, Lucas said, “It’s important for groups like white men who have been told that our doors are closed to them, to know that they’re not. We’re open. We’re going to take their concerns seriously.”

Lucas encouraged white men who believe they have experienced discrimination to reach out to the EEOC.

“We’re going to the defend the rights of everyone,” she said, “not just some favored groups.”

Lucas divulged the EEOC will crack down on any Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policy “whenever it involves race or sex discrimination.”

“To the extent any employment policy, whether it’s a DEI, Belonging, or Inclusion Policy, if it is functioning to engage in race or sex discrimination, that’s unlawful,” Lucas shared.

Chair Lucas also encouraged conservative individuals, who may be hesitant to request civil rights protections, to be open to contacting the EEOC.

“If your rights have been trampled on, whether its race or religious discrimination, you do have rights,” she said. “You can help protect yourself and others by exercising your rights. In an increasingly post-Christian world, it may be more imperative to be aware of what rights you have.”

A Personal Reflection

Before being nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by former President George H.W. Bush, Clarence Thomas served as the eighth chair of the EEOC for eight years.

Asked what it’s like to serve in his former position, Chair Lucas confessed with a grin, “It’s really cool.”

“He’s a personal hero of mine. He’s amazing, and that’s always a really special part of this job,” she added. “I’m constantly inspired by him. It’s an honor. I have big shoes to fill.”

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