By Daniel Wiessner
(Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump has fired at least two Democratic members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which enforces federal laws banning workplace discrimination, in an unprecedented move likely to spur legal challenges.
EEOC Commissioners Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows said Trump, a Republican, removed them from their posts late on Monday. Trump also fired the agency’s general counsel, Karla Gilbride.
The EEOC is an independent agency whose commissioners serve staggered five-year terms, meaning control of the commission typically does not change hands for a year or two after a new president takes office. No president has ever fired a commissioner.
A White House official said the commissioners “were far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law.”
“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.
Samuels said in a statement that she, Burrows and Gilbride were fired over their views on sex discrimination and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which Trump has said are discriminatory.
In his first week in office, Trump moved to end DEI programs in the federal government and urged private companies to do the same.
It was not immediately clear if Trump had removed the third Democratic appointee at the agency, Kalpana Kotagal. Trump named Andrea Lucas, the EEOC’s lone Republican appointee, as its acting chair last week.
The five-member commission already had a vacancy, so firing Samuels and Burrows leaves it without a quorum of three commissioners. That means the remaining members cannot adopt rules and legal guidance, direct staff to take certain actions, and issue rulings in discrimination cases brought by federal employees.
Trump has similarly gutted the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces workers’ rights to organize and join unions, by firing its general counsel and a Democratic member and leaving the agency unable to issue rulings in hundreds of pending cases.
In separate statements on Tuesday, Burrows and Samuels said they were considering their legal options. Samuels’ term was set to expire in July 2026 and Burrows’ term two years later.
The firings “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 said.
ABORTION, TRANSGENDER RIGHTS
The commission enforces laws banning workplace discrimination based on sex, race, religion, national origin, age, disability and pregnancy and other protected traits. It receives tens of thousands of complaints each year from workers alleging that they have faced discrimination.
The general counsel’s office vets those complaints and must give workers permission to sue before they can go to court. The general counsel can also broker settlements and file its own lawsuits against employers. The commission hears cases against federal agencies.
When fully stocked, the commission must have three members from the president’s party and two from the opposing party.
Trump first appointed Samuels to the agency in 2020 to fill a vacated seat, and she was tapped for a full term by former President Joe Biden, a Democrat. Burrows was the chair of the EEOC during the Biden administration, after Trump nominated her for a second term at the agency in 2019.
Samuels and Burrows approved legal guidance that said employers must use transgender workers’ preferred pronouns and allow them to use the bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity. Last year the EEOC adopted a rule saying employers’ legal obligation to accommodate workers who are pregnant also extends to those who get abortions or use contraception.
Federal law does not say when commissioners can be removed from office. The law that created the EEOC says that commissioners serve five-year terms and “shall continue to serve until their successors are appointed and qualified.”
Trump has not said who he plans to nominate to fill the vacancies at the agency.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York and Andrea Shalal in Washington; Editing by Chris Reese, Alexia Garamfalvi and Nia Williams)
