Two of the three democratic commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioners said on Tuesday that they had been removed from their role by President Trump in a Tour of Late-Night that has a drastic shift in the approach to the government of employees in discrimination rights of employees could mark. .
Charlotte A. Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels both said they had been removed from their jobs late on Monday evening. Their Ousters can leave the agency without a quorum that it would allow a formal action.
The general lawyer of the EEOC, Karla Gilbride, was also fired on Monday evening, she said in a telephone interview. Kalpana Kotagal, the third Democratic Commissioner, did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Mrs. Kotagal's period expires in July 2027.
Their deletions come during a whirlwind of actions since Mr Trump was sworn in on January 20, with many aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion policy on the workplace, Mr Trump and his supporters have referred to as 'WEK policy'.
Mr. Trump also dismissed the general counsel and one of the commissioners of the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, also effectively bumping that body.
For Mrs. Burrows, who had been appointed to the committee by former President Barack Obama, the resignation came three years before the end of her term of office. Mrs. Samuels said that her term of office did not end until July 2026. Both were confirmed by the Senate.
The EEOC helps employees who believe they have been discriminated against to take an action against their employers. The mandate of the NLRB is to enforce the rights of private sector workers to make trade unions and to take collective action.
Last week Mr. Trump tapped on Andrea Lucas, a commissioner he appointed in October 2020, to serve as acting chairman of the EEOC in a statement last week, Mrs. Lucas said that she 'looked forward to the even enforcement of the Restoring laws for civil rights for all Americans. “
She said that her priorities would include “exterminating illegal dei-motivated breed and discrimination based on gender”, including initiatives.
Mrs. Lucas refused to comment and referred all the media investigations into Vincent Chen of the EEOC media team. Mr. Chen said that all questions about the committee were referred to the White House.
A spokeswoman for the White House did not immediately return a request for comments.
The dismissals leave the EEOC with only two commissioners, including the observation chairman.
Mrs Burrows was appointed EEOC in 2015 and worked as chairman of the committee from January 2021 as the appointment of Mrs. Lucas. Her term of office would expire in 2028. According to the EEOC website, Mrs. Burrows concentrated on the enforcement of the civil rights laws. She started initiatives about artificial intelligence and recruitment practices to expand diversity and inclusion.
In a statement, Mrs. Burrows, who has retained a lawyer, called her removal unknown and said that she would “explore all legal options for me”.
“The removal of me, together with commissioner Samuels, is well before the expiry of our conditions and will undermine the efforts of this independent agency to do the important work to protect employees against discrimination, supporting the employers' compliance with the employers And expanding the public awareness and understanding of the public and understanding of federal labor laws, “she said in the statement.
Mrs Samuels said in a statement that her removal has violated the law and “represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the EEOC as an independent agency.”
“These deletions leave the EEOC without a quorum, which bumps the ability of the agency to protect employees against illegal discrimination,” said Mrs. Samuels.
Mrs. Samuels started at the committee in 2020 and was confirmed for a second term that would end in 2026. She previously worked at the UCLA School of Law and as director of the Office for Civil Rights at the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The two dismissed commissioners, together with Mrs. Kotagal, placed a statement about X that took Mr Trump's decision on January 21 to engage a historical executive order issued in 1965 by President Lyndon Johnson by discriminating the workplace by federal contractors.
Shortly after Mr Trump had been inaugurated, the Ministry of Justice asked a federal court to cancel oral arguments in a case that disputed an EEOC guidelines on the gender identity in the workplace. Government lawyers said that the disputed facts had changed on the basis of the executive command of Mr Trump who said that the federal government only recognizes two sexes, which would change the guidance of the agency.
According to a notation about the docket, the judge agreed to cancel the planned argument “in view of the obvious significance of the executive order for this court case.”
