Acting head of civil rights agency defends decisions undercutting transgender workers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The acting chair of the federal agency that enforces workers rights acknowledged Wednesday that transgender workers are protected under civil rights laws but defended her decision to drop lawsuits on their behalf, saying her agency is not independent and must comply with President Donald Trump's orders.

Andrea Lucas, who was first appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2020 and elevated to chair in January, spoke at her confirmation hearing at the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Her nomination to serve another five-year term as an EEOC commissioner requires Senate confirmation, though whether she stays on as chair will be up to Trump.

Republican senators praised her leadership, especially her commitment to rolling back Biden-era regulations and guidance on gender-identity rights, which Lucas has argued overstepped the EEOC's authority.

Lucas faced questions from Democrats who said she has eroded the traditional independence of the EEOC and acted on the president's whims since Trump fired two of the agency's Democratic commissioners before their terms expired in an unprecedented act.

Lucas, a strident critic of diversity and inclusion programs and proponent of the idea that there are only two immutable sexes, repeatedly declared that the EEOC is not independent and vowed to enthusiastically follow Trump's executive orders. Those include orders aimed at dismantling diversity and programs in the public and private sectors and declaring that the federal government would only recognize the male and female sexes.

''As head of the EEOC, I'm committed to dismantling the identity politics that have plagued our civil rights laws,'' Lucas said. "President Trump has given the agency the most ambitious civil rights agenda in decades. If I have the honor of being reconfirmed, I am passionate about achieving that agenda.''

The committee also heard from three Department of Labor nominees: Project 2025 author Jonathan Berry for solicitor; current EEOC Acting General Counsel Andrew Rogers for administrator of the wage and hour division, and former U.S. House Representative Anthony D'Esposito for inspector general.

Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, pressed Lucas on the EEOC's dismissal of seven gender identity discrimination lawsuits, asking if it was her decision to drop a California case involving gender nonconforming workers, in which the EEOC had charged that a store manager groped an employee, asked an employee for sex, commented an employee's breasts, and used sexual profanities

Lucas affirmed it was her decision, alongside consultation with staff, to drop that and six other cases because of Trump's executive order declaring that there are only two biological, immutable sexes.

''It was impossible to both comply with the president's executive order as an executive branch agency, and also zealously defend the workers we had brought the case on behalf,'' she said.

Later in the hearing, Lucas acknowledged that a 2020 Supreme Court ruling ''did clearly hold that discriminating against someone on the basis of sex included firing an individual who is transgender or based on their sexual orientation.''

But Lucas, citing confidentiality laws, declined to answer Murray's question about how the EEOC intends to handle discrimination complaints from transgender workers, including an order, first reported by The Associated Press, to classify all new gender identity-related discrimination cases as its lowest priority, essentially deeming them meritless and putting them on hold.

Indiana Republican Sen. Jim Banks welcomed the change in direction at the EEOC, and asked Lucas how the EEOC would combat discrimination against workers who affirm their ''common sense'' belief that there are two immutable sexes.

Lucas responded by criticizing Biden-era EEOC guidance establishing protections against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

''There are men and there are women. Full stop,'' Lucas said. ''I think this is a place where the Biden administration absolutely weaponized the EEOC.''

Committee Chairman Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy said Lucas ''has a strong record of protecting workers from discrimination and ensuring the EEOC follows the law as Congress wrote the law.''

The EEOC, the only federal agency empowered to investigate employment discrimination in the private sector, received more than 88,000 charges of workplace discrimination in fiscal year 2024. Created by Congress under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the EEOC's commissioners are appointed by the president to staggered terms, and no more than three can be from the same party.

Democrats on the Senate committee assailed Trump's dismissals of the EEOC Democratic commissioners as part of the administration's wider attempts to increase his authority by politicizing agencies long considered to be independent.

Murray reminded Lucas of her own past protestations during the Biden administration that the EEOC was an independent agency. Lucas said she had been mistaken and has changed her mind

Sen. Andy Kim, a Democrat from New Jersey, pushed Lucas on far she would go to follow Trump's orders, asking if she would obey orders to dismiss or file particular lawsuits against companies. Lucas declined to answer.

''The fact that you are saying that the president is your boss, that you take direction from the president, and the president tells you to dismiss a case, or to go after a particular employer, or to rule in a particular way, I just find that to be a dangerous place for us in our government and our democracy,'' Kim said.

Lucas is prioritizing worker rights that conservatives argue have been ignored by the EEOC. That includes investigating company DEI practices, defending the rights of women to same-sex spaces and fighting anti-Christian bias in the workplace.

''I think the American people should be delighted at the idea that President Trump is leading with an amazing vision for civil rights for all Americans,'' Lucas said.

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This story corrects that Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas said that a Supreme Court ruling in 2020 established that it is illegal to fire a worker based on their transgender status, not that it established that gender identity discrimination is illegal under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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