Workplace rights agency scraps anti-harassment guidance, citing Trump's orders

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal agency in charge of enforcing workplace anti-discrimination laws on Thursday voted to rescind its own guidance on how to guard against harassment at work, marking another major shift in U.S. civil rights enforcement under President Donald Trump's second administration.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's newly-established Republican majority voted to rescind the 190-page document designed to serve as a resource for compliance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, including how to protect transgender workers. Chair Andrea Lucas and recently-installed Commissioner Brittany Panuccio cited Trump's executive order issued last year — in which he decreed there are two immutable sexes, male and female — as one of the reasons for revoking the document.

Lucas emphasized at the beginning of Thursday's meeting that the commission's decision to rescind the guidance “will not leave a void where employers are free to harass wherever they see fit, leaving a trail of victims in their wake," citing several recent examples of settled harassment cases. And Panuccio said that private sector resources on anti-harassment law would fill in any gaps.

But critics argue that all workers will now be more vulnerable to harassment without the EEOC guidance. Kalpana Kotagal, the lone Democrat on the commission, likened it to “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.” She voted against getting rid of it.

“At the height of the #MeToo movement, millions bravely came forward to share their stories, exposing harassment as an abuse of power,” Kotagal said. “The EEOC rose to the occasion by promulgating the guidance being rescinded today, which strives to make workplaces safer for everyone.”

The EEOC received more than 35,000 harassment complaints in fiscal year 2024.

The agency updated its guidance on workplace harassment in April 2024 under President Joe Biden for the first time in 25 years following a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gay, lesbian and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination. Lucas voted against the guidance at that time, citing her opposition to language warning employers against deliberately misgendering transgender employees or refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity.

“It is neither harassment nor discrimination for a business to draw distinctions between the sexes in providing single-sex bathrooms or other similar facilities which implicate these significant privacy and safety interests,” Lucas wrote in a 2024 statement dissenting to the guidance.

The agency under Lucas’s leadership has been aggressively paring back protections for transgender workers, dropping lawsuits on their behalf as well as requiring heightened scrutiny for incoming complaints related to gender identity.

Workers' groups have voiced strong opposition to removing the EEOC's harassment guidance. Led by the National Women’s Law Center, more than 80 organizations signed a letter urging Lucas to preserve it.

A few dozen protesters clustered outside the EEOC building on Thursday morning before the meeting, holding signs demanding “hands off the EEOC” and waving flags bearing the blue-and-yellow equality logo for LGBTQ+ rights group Human Rights Campaign.

“The fact that they’re taking this majorly in-depth guidance that is so worker-centered and they’re just chucking it all is such a slap in the face,” said Kate Miceli, a protester who previously worked at the Women’s Bureau at the Department of Labor.

A group of 12 former EEOC and Department of Labor officials said withdrawing the whole document deprives “employers of a clear blueprint for creating and maintaining a harassment-free workplace and complying with anti-discrimination laws.” The group, called EEO Leaders, in a Jan. 20 statement also criticized the chair for depriving the public of the chance to weigh in on the decision by foregoing a notice and comment period.

The agency received more than 38,000 comments and public opinions during the yearslong process of developing the 2024 guidance. ________

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