Dive Brief:
- President Donald Trump has dismissed Commissioners Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels as well as General Counsel Karla Gilbride from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Democratic officials confirmed to HR Dive.
- Gilbride, nominated by former President Joe Biden and confirmed to a four-year term in 2023, was the first person with a known disability to be appointed EEOC general counsel. Burrows and Samuels were confirmed to terms ending in 2028 and 2026, respectively. The dismissals are part of a broader shakeup at employment law enforcement agencies early this week — largely unprecedented moves.
- An EEOC spokesperson referred HR Dive to the White House Tuesday. A White House official did not confirm the dismissals, but did note that Biden similarly dismissed EEOC’s general counsel after his own inauguration. “These were far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law, and they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump Administration, which was given a mandate by the American people to undo the radical policies they created,” the official said.
Dive Insight:
As with Trump’s dismissal of officials at the National Labor Relations Board this week — including a Democratic NLRB member whose term was not set to expire until August 2028 — the shuffling of EEOC personnel immediately provoked threats of legal retaliation.
Burrows said in an email to HR Dive that she would “explore all legal options available” and added that the removal of Samuels and herself “is unprecedented and will undermine the efforts of this independent agency to do the important work of protecting employees from discrimination, supporting employers’ compliance efforts, and expanding public awareness and understanding of federal employment laws.”
Burrows has served on the commission since 2015, originally nominated by former President Barack Obama and made EEOC chair in 2021 by Biden. Samuels was nominated by then-President Donald Trump in 2020 and joined the commission in October of that year.
Burrows was previously EEOC chair. Republican appointee Andrea Lucas is now acting chair and is joined only by Democratic commissioner Kalpana Kotagal with three empty seats remaining. On Tuesday, Lucas — in a potential sign of EEOC’s shifting policy priorities under Trump — unveiled a host of initiatives that included rolling back Biden-era changes allowing claimants filing with EEOC to mark “X” as an available gender option and “Mx.” as a prefix option.
Lucas also indicated that EEOC’s proposed harassment guidance under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act is on the chopping block, while stating that an acting chair “cannot unilaterally remove or modify” the guidance’s sections on gender identity discrimination. Those provisions have been the subject of an ongoing legal challenge by multiple state attorneys general.
“Biology is not bigotry. Biological sex is real, and it matters,” Lucas said in the Tuesday statement. “Sex is binary (male and female) and immutable. It is not harassment to acknowledge these truths — or to use language like pronouns that flow from these realities, even repeatedly.”
In a statement published to LinkedIn Tuesday, Gilbride said she was grateful for the opportunity to serve as general counsel but “disheartened” by Trump’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion executive orders and “troubled by the deep and widespread fear that I perceive among many of my colleagues” at EEOC and other federal agencies.
Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., the former chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, criticized Trump’s EEOC and NLRB dismissals as attacks on workplace civil rights protections in a statement. “These brazen firings undermine not only the will of Congress but these agencies’ critical work fighting on behalf of workers across the country,” Murray said.
Management-side attorneys cautioned employers that the near-term result of the dismissals could be a slowdown of both agencies’ work. Both NLRB and EEOC now lack a quorum, Eric Meyer, partner at Pierson Ferdinand, wrote in a blog post, meaning that the agencies could struggle to issue rulings, guidance documents or litigate and enforce employment laws and regulations. But he noted that employers should continue to prioritize compliance despite the news.
“As these dramatic changes unfold, HR professionals and business owners should stay informed, work closely with legal counsel, and be prepared to adapt to an evolving labor and employment landscape,” Meyer said.
Jim Paretti, shareholder at Littler Mendelson, wrote in an article for the firm that while the EEOC dismissals limit the commission’s ability to move forward with significant policy changes or engage in high-stakes or high-profile litigation, “routine litigation may still be commenced without Commission approval.”
