Trump fires two Democratic commissioners of agency that enforces civil rights laws in the workplace

ARLINGTON, Va. — President Donald Trump fired two of the three Democratic commissioners of the federal agency that enforces civil rights law in the workplace, an unprecedented move aimed at implementing his crackdown on certain diversity and gender rights policies. The two firings leave the agency with one Republican commissioner, Andrea Lucas, who Trump appointed acting EEOC chair last week, one Democratic commissioner, Kalpana Kotagal, and three vacancies that Trump can fill. Lucas, the new acting EEOC chair, issued a statement last week saying that she would prioritize “rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination; protecting American workers from anti-American national origin discrimination; defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single‑sex spaces at work.” The three Democratic commissioners in contrast all issued statements last week condemning a slew of executive orders aimed at ending DEI practices in the federal workforce and private companies, along with protections for transgender workers. Burrows, who has been an EEOC commissioner since 2015, said in her statement Tuesday that the dismissal of two Democratic commissioners before their terms ended “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.” Samuels, who was appointed by Trump in 2020, said her removal “violates the law, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the EEOC as an independent agency – one that is not controlled by a single Cabinet secretary but operates as a multi-member body whose varying views are baked into the Commission’s design.” _______ This story corrects that Keith Sonderling left the EEOC before Trump nominated him as deputy labor secretary, not after.