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U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 22, 2025

EEOC Delivers Historic Results for American Workers in First 120 Days

Under New Leadership, Federal Agency Coordinates Vigorous Campaign Against Discrimination and Harassment at Work, Including DEI-Related Race and Sex Discrimination; Antisemitism, Anti-Christian Bias, and Other Forms of Religious Bias; and National Origin Discrimination against American Workers

WASHINGTON – Over the past 120 days of the second Trump Administration, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) under the leadership of Acting Chair Andrea Lucas has undertaken exhaustive efforts to restore evenhanded enforcement of employment civil rights laws on behalf of all Americans.

Guided by President Trump’s pledge to restore dignity to the American worker, the EEOC has mobilized every available resource at its disposal to ensure this nation’s workforce can once again thrive and prosper under the protection of a government committed to eradicating discriminatory practices the Commission has identified throughout the private and public sector and fought aggressively to dismantle since day one of this administration.

To accomplish this, Acting Chair Lucas has mobilized the full weight of the EEOC, in conjunction with the support and backing of our federal partners across the administration, particularly the Department of Justice, to ensure the swift return of fairness, sanity, and equality under the law as an unequivocal standard to which all employers are held across every sector of the American economy.

Within the first 120 days under Lucas’s leadership, consistent with President Trump’s Executive Orders and priorities, the EEOC has taken the following actions:

EEOC Attacks All Forms of Race Discrimination, Including Such Discrimination Arising From DEI

• The EEOC rooted out DEI-related discrimination practices in our nation’s elite law firms, securing major commitments to merit-based employment practices in EEOC settlements with six of the nation’s largest law firms, in conjunction with concurrent $700 million settlements by those firms with President Trump.
• The EEOC unveiled comprehensive resource materials to help workers and employers understand, identify, and report DEI-related race and sex discrimination.
• Acting Chair Lucas reminded employers of their obligations not to use demographic data collected for annual EEO-1 reporting to the EEOC to discriminate against employees based on race or other protected characteristics.
• The EEOC’s Chicago District Office filed a subpoena enforcement action in federal court against Mauser Packaging Solutions to investigate claims that this employer engaged in illegal hiring practices harming multiple groups of applicants (respectively, white, black, Hispanic, and female applicants), including by making inappropriate requests to staffing, placement or recruiting companies to provide it with workers or candidates for various Mauser facilities who had demographic characteristics that matched the demographics of the population of employees who already worked at those facilities, effectively segregating various facilities by race, national origin, or sex.
• The EEOC’s Miami District Office obtained more than $215,000 in a settlement against construction parts and auto mechanic companies Trebor USA, Colt Truck Care and Wholesale Building Products on behalf of black and Hispanic workers who suffered race and national origin harassment, as well as retaliation, in violation of Title VII.
• The EEOC’s San Francisco District Office obtained a $175,000 settlement against vehicle auctioneer Insurance Auto Auctions, Inc. on behalf of black workers who suffered racial harassment, including repeated racial slurs by coworkers, to the point where an employee was eventually forced to quit over the harassment, in violation of Title VII.

EEOC Protects Religious Freedom

• Acting Chair Lucas promised to hold American universities accountable for on-campus antisemitism and religious bias against employees, building on the Commission’s prior unanimous condemnation of antisemitism and resource materials about addressing antisemitism at work.
• The EEOC’s Miami District filed a lawsuit against timeshare companies under the Marriott corporate umbrella, alleging Marriott failed to accommodate a sales executive’s request to observe the Sabbath in accordance with her faith in violation of Title VII, forcing her to choose between showing up for work or adhering to her religious practice and leading her to resign.
• Acting Chair Lucas participated in the first meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias in the federal government, established under Executive Order 14202.
• The EEOC’s Chicago District Office settled a COVID-19 vaccine religious accommodation charge against Infinity Rehab for both monetary and injunctive relief; and the Department of Justice (DOJ) settled a COVID-19 vaccine mandate lawsuit arising out of a teacher’s charge investigated by the EEOC’s Oklahoma City Area Office.
• Following government and employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates, the EEOC received more than 10,000 religious accommodation charges related to this issue as well as more than 6,000 disability accommodation charges related to this issue. To date, the EEOC has recovered over $54 million for workers impacted by these mandates.

EEOC Protects American Workers From Unlawful National Origin Discrimination Involving Preferences for Foreign Workers

• Acting Chair Lucas announced she would be prioritizing enforcement against unlawful national original discrimination against American workers in favor of foreign workers, in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Labor, and DOJ.
• The EEOC’s Los Angeles District Office settled a foreign-preference national origin discrimination lawsuit for $1.4 million against LeoPalace, a major hotel and resort in Guam on behalf of non-Japanese employees, including multiple former employees of American national origin.
• Since 2019, the EEOC has recovered almost $7 million in “foreign preference” national origin discrimination cases.

EEOC Defends Women’s Sex-Based Rights at Work

• The EEOC removed gender ideology from within the EEOC and restored its adherence to the binary and biological reality of sex in order to protect women’s rights in the workplace.
• The EEOC updated its website to reflect a federal court striking down portions of EEOC’s Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, a document that previously effectively eliminated single-sex spaces at work and infringed on employees’ religious and free speech rights – positions that Lucas voted against in her previous role as Commissioner and vowed to dismantle as Chair.
• The EEOC filed lawsuits protecting classes of young female workers (including multiple minors) from sexual harassment, including the EEOC’s Los Angeles District Office’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Paia Inn and the EEOC’s Chicago District Office’s sexual harassment lawsuit against Taco Bell Franchisees.
  • Since January 2025, the EEOC already has recovered more than $1.2 million remedying sexual harassment, including sexual harassment against minors.
• The EEOC continued to protect the rights of pregnant women, winning more than $114,000 of compensation for women who were discriminated against based on their pregnancies, since January. The EEOC also filed a lawsuit against a Philadelphia nonprofit for failing to accommodate an employee with a high-risk pregnancy.

EEOC Fights for the Rights of Veterans With Disabilities

• The EEOC’s Miami District Office secured an over $400,000 jury verdict on behalf of a Florida veteran who was denied a reasonable accommodation for her PTSD by The Princess Martha, a senior living facility.
• The EEOC’s Philadelphia District filed a disability accommodation lawsuit against Criswell Chevrolet on behalf of an Iraqi War veteran injured in combat who requested to have a service dog at work.

EEOC Initiated Significant Work to Reform the EEO Complaint Process for Federal Employees

• EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas is reforming the agency’s federal sector program, including through a series of course-correcting memoranda to make the EEOC more accountable.
• The first memorandum, “Ending Unauthorized Monetary Sanctions Against Federal Agencies,” corrects the EEOC’s previous rejection of binding authority by the Department of Justice (DOJ); reaffirms that DOJ’s OLC opinions constitute controlling legal advice to Executive Branch officials; and ends the EEOC’s practice of imposing monetary sanctions against federal agency employers during the federal sector EEO complaint process.
• The second memorandum, “Restoring and Protecting the Presumption of Innocence in the EEO Complaint Process,” reaffirms the commonsense proposition that everyone is innocent until proven guilty and reminds all federal agency employers that they should give federal sector EEO defendants a full and fair chance to clear their names.

These wins represent only a small fraction of work being done to protect the American worker from discrimination and harm in the workplace. The majority of the EEOC’s law enforcement work is confidential and remains so prior to a public settlement or filing of a legal action. Rest assured, however—across the nation, from our headquarters in Washington, D.C. and throughout our field offices serving every part of the nation, dedicated members of the EEOC staff are securing valuable wins for the American worker.

“Under the Trump Administration, we will not turn a blind eye to employer practices that deny American workers their livelihoods, dignity, and rights,” Lucas said. “I look forward to the EEOC continuing our aggressive pursuit of justice, individual rights, and colorblind equality under the law.”

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The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against private companies and other private employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division; the EEOC is responsible for investigating public sector charges before referring them to DOJ for potential litigation. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information is available at www.eeoc.gov. Stay connected with the latest EEOC news by subscribing to our email updates.

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