President Trump has purged commissioners and top legal counsel at the two of the most important federal agencies tasked with protecting workers’ rights and maintaining an equitable workplace. Both the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) were formed by Congress and are meant to be independent, bi-partisan organizations.
While it is common for incoming presidents to replace legal counsel, it is unprecedented to fire commissioners before the end of their legally mandated terms. Given the missions of the agencies, these shake-ups could portend significant changes to how the law is interpreted and applied, affecting workers nationwide.
What Happened at the EEOC?
The EEOC is charged with enforcing the nation’s laws against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation in employment, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act. These statutes make it illegal, for example, to terminate, to harass, to refuse to promote, or to otherwise mistreat workers on the basis of their race, sex, religion, national origin, or disability, among other categories.
The EEOC is overseen by five commissioners, with one acting as chair. A minimum of three commissioners must be seated to form a quorum, enabling them to issue new guidance and agency rules. One of these seats had been vacant since July 2024. Of the four remaining commissioners, two were recently fired by President Trump.
Jocelyn Samuels was appointed by President Trump during his first term to replace a Democratic appointee. Her agency term was set to expire in July 2026. Charlotte Burrows was most recently chair of the commission. She had been appointed by President Obama and continued her service under both Presidents Trump and Biden. Her term was set to expire in July 2028. As is standard with these positions, both women had been confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
Yet President Trump fired both Samuels and Burrows late at night on Monday, January 27 via email. Samuels said that the White House specifically criticized her supposed “views on DEIA initiatives and sex discrimination” in its termination email. EEOC General Counsel Karla Gilbride was also terminated.
It is unprecedented for a president to terminate EEOC commissioners in the midst of their terms, especially when their positions are mandated by law under Title VII and they have been confirmed by the Senate.
In fact, a Supreme Court case has even held that a president cannot remove executive branch officers if they possess a “quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial” role. The EEOC commissioners would seem to fall within this category. Both Samuels and Burrows are considering their legal options, with Burrows having already secured legal representation.
What Does the EEOC Purge Mean for Workers?
As the terminated commissioners have not yet been replaced, the EEOC lacks a quorum of commissioners, and thus cannot currently make new rules and policies. Further, it is unable to revise or rescind existing rules. The EEOC’s guidelines are effectively frozen in place for the time being.
The Trump Administration is attempting to massively shrink the federal workforce across the board. If the EEOC loses investigators and other employees, that would in turn portend longer wait times for having charges of discrimination processed, on top of already long delays.
Yet Trump has already issued executive orders that will significantly affect the EEOC’s interpretation of Title VII’s protections in the future. For example, he signed Executive Order 14168, “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” This order insists there are two biological human sexes—male and female—and instructs the EEOC to use this understanding of sex whenever it interprets or applies any kind of law or guidance. In essence, the order serves to erase federal recognition of transgender people, intersex individuals, and anyone else who doesn’t neatly fit into this conception of “sex,” and therefore seeks to remove their legal protections.
Further, the order directs the EEOC to “prioritize investigations and litigation” to “ensure the freedom to express the binary nature of sex and the right to single-sex spaces in workplaces.” In other words, the agency is ordered to uphold the rights of individuals who refuse to recognize the existence of transgender colleagues or who would deny a transgender coworker the ability to use a washroom that aligns with their gender identity. This directive will almost certainly embolden anti-trans sentiment and lead to a rise in workplace harassment against transgender and gender non-conforming workers.
The order additionally rescinds previous agency guidelines. It retracts by name the EEOC’s “Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace” (April 29, 2024), which recognized the application of Title VII protections to gay and transgender workers, established that hair texture can be related to one’s race, and recommended the use of workplace investigations and culture audits.
As there is no quorum, the EEOC is currently unable to rescind past guidance or to otherwise implement this executive order, but there is little doubt that the agency will move in that direction once a Trump-appointed quorum is reached. The new Trump-appointed EEOC Chair, Andrea Lucas, has already announced her new priorities in a statement, vowing to “root[] out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination” and to “defend[] the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights.”
In fact, simply in anticipation of future changes in EEOC guidance, the Department of Justice (DOJ) requested that a federal judge suspend oral arguments in a lawsuit that was challenging EEOC guidance on gender identity in the workplace. The DOJ claimed that the EEOC’s guidance would be changing as a result of the executive order, thereby changing the nature of the case.
What Can Workers Do?
Although the laws enforced by the EEOC remain in place, their scope will inevitably be constricted at the federal level. Consequently, workers’ location will take on increased importance, as they may have to rely more heavily on state and local laws for protection. For example, Illinois’ Human Rights Act provides safeguards for sexual orientation, as well as for transgender, non-binary, and otherwise gender non-conforming workers. Likewise, the Cook County Human Rights Ordinance and the Chicago Human Rights Ordinance do the same.
In areas lacking state or local laws that protect sexual orientation and gender identity, job seekers may simply have to double down on values alignment during their job searches. They will have to pay increased attention to a company’s core values, mission statement, anti-harassment policies, and DEI initiatives—or the lack thereof. Applicants should ask questions up front in a job search about workplace culture, representation, and support.
For workers currently employed who are already seeing signs of a lack of respect, discrimination, or harassment, they may consider leaving their job earlier than they otherwise would. If federal protections were previously the main safeguard against mistreatment, workers might not want to wait around until they face emotionally draining harassment or the financial fallout of a wrongful termination. Partnering with a recruitment agency to help find a new opportunity might be their next best move.
Workers might also find camaraderie and some solace in joining associations focused on political and social organizing, policy advocacy, and mutual support. The next four years will likely bring increasing rollbacks to employment protections, and finding common cause with other individuals may be the most meaningful way for some workers to soldier on.