The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will no longer reimburse state and local agencies for investigating gender identity, transgender, or disparate impact claims. However, states may continue to fund such investigations on their own, and plaintiffs may still seek redress in federal court.
A May 20 memorandum from the EEOC’s Office of Field Programs announced the policy shift, which applies retroactively to January 20, the beginning of President Trump’s second term. This change aligns with President Trump’s executive orders restricting disparate impact theory (Executive Order 14281) and defining sex as strictly binary (Executive Order 14168).
Federal law remains unchanged — workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is still prohibited under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County. Employees can still sue even if the agencies decline to enforce these types of claims, but it may be harder for them to prevail because they will not have whatever evidence the agency investigations would have revealed.
Members of the Center for Workplace Compliance (CWC), our affiliated nonprofit membership association, can read more here.