Dive Brief:
- A transgender former director of information governance and strategy for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed an EEO complaint with the agency that alleged discrimination and a hostile work environment at EEOC under Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, according to a Thursday news release by Katz Banks Kumin LLP, the firm representing the ex-EEOC worker.
- The worker alleged that the agency disbanded an LGBTQ+ employee group, rescinded internal protections and stopped processing gender identity discrimination charges in violation of federal law.
- “[The former worker’s] allegations provide a window into the current environment at the EEOC, which is hostile to LGBTQ+ employees, in direct contravention of its obligation to prevent and remedy employment discrimination” Rachel Green, senior associate at Katz Banks Kumin, said in the release. “We hope that his courage in coming forward will lead to meaningful change at the agency and justice for his mistreatment, and that of other LGBTQ+ employees.” An EEOC spokesperson said, “The Commission does not comment on personnel matters.”
Dive Insight:
The complaint comes a month after an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization sued EEOC and Lucas, alleging they unlawfully refused to enforce federal workplace protections for transgender workers.
That lawsuit, which was filed by FreeState Justice, a Maryland legal services nonprofit organization serving the state’s LGBTQ+ population, alleged that, under Lucas’ leadership, the agency “abdicated” its core duty to protect workers from discrimination by denying transgender workers access to its charge-investigation process.
Since being named acting chair earlier this year, Lucas has said EEOC will prioritize “rolling back the Biden administration’s gender identity agenda.”
Part of that has involved scrubbing “any recognition of transgender and non-binary people … from EEOC’s public materials, outreach efforts, and workplace protections,” the new Equal Employment Opportunity complaint alleged.
The former EEOC worker said he was required by the director of National Engagement and Field Management Programs to “develop a technology-supported business process that allowed the Office of Field Programs … to rapidly review and censor all EEOC presentation materials to erase any mention of transgender, non-binary, or sexual orientation.” That tool, he was later told, was expanded for use throughout the agency.
“While the creation of this tool falls within the scope of my job duties, being forced to create the information technology that would systematically erase all EEOC references to transgender, non-binary, or other LGBTQ+ people, given that I am a queer transgender man, was personally devastating and contributed to a hostile work environment,” the former worker said. “I was asked to create business processes and technical tools that were being weaponized to facilitate discrimination against transgender employees like me.”
In the EEO charge, the former employee requested that EEOC stop its allegedly discriminatory practices; restore employee training, education and workplace policies; reinstate protections for LGBTQ+ complainants and investigations; and pay compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees.
The worker said he plans to file a lawsuit against the agency if his complaint isn’t properly addressed.
