"The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the only federal agency that protects private-sector workers' rights to be free from discrimination, is on the verge of erasing a guidance document outlining all forms of illegal harassment, setting the agency back to the 1990s. Without the document to refer to, workers will struggle to vindicate their right to be free from harassment, and courts will be deprived of a worker-friendly and up-to-date set of standards for what constitutes harassment, agency experts say."
"the current chair, Andrea Lucas, then in the minority, voted against it. At the time, she said she opposed the document because, following a decade of EEOC precedent and then the 2020 Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County finding that discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity is illegal under Title XII of the Civil Rights Act, it says harassment based on these characteristics is prohibited."
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is poised to erase an Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace that outlined illegal harassment forms. The absence of the guidance will make it harder for workers to vindicate harassment rights and will deprive courts of an up-to-date, worker-friendly standard. Commissioners approved the guidance in April 2024, but Andrea Lucas opposed it on grounds that harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity should not be covered following her view of biological sex. After two Democratic commissioners were fired and a new commissioner was confirmed, Lucas gained a majority and moved to rescind the guidance.
Read at The Nation
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