White House Shakes Up NLRB, EEOC

01.30.2025
HR & Safety

The Trump Administration wasted no time making changes to the National Labor Relations Board and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

President Donald Trump fired NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, NLRB Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox, EEOC general counsel Karla Gilbride, and two of the three EEOC Democratic commissioners Jan. 27. 

In 2021, then-President Biden fired then-NLRB general counsel Peter Robb on Inauguration Day, but no board member has been let go in the history of the National Labor Relations Act. 

Wilcox, who was appointed by Biden, served as board chair since December, 2024. Wilcox said she plans to challenge the firing.

Deputy general counsel Jessica Rutter is now NLRB acting general counsel. 

The firings leave both the NLRB and EEOC without working quorums and it is unclear whether either board can now act on any significant policy actions.

EEOC Actions

Acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas also announced a number of actions based on a Jan. 20 Trump administration executive order directing “federal agencies to enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.”

In a Jan. 28 statement, Lucas said one of her priorities was “to defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work.”

CBIA’s Feb. 25 Human Resources Conference features in-depth discussions about the Trump administration’s impact on the workplace.

The announced actions included:

  • Removed the agency’s pronoun app, a feature in employees’ Microsoft 365 profiles, which allowed EEOC employees to opt to identify pronouns.
  • Ended the use of the “X” gender marker during the intake process for filing a charge of discrimination.
  • Directed the modification of the charge of discrimination and related forms to remove “Mx.” from the list of prefix options.
  • Commenced review of the content of EEOC’s Know Your Rights poster, which all covered employers are required by law to post in their workplaces.
  • Removed materials “promoting gender ideology” on the commission’s internal and external websites and documents.

In the statement, Lucas acknowledged she cannot unilaterally remove or modify materials approved by majority votes of the commission that she said were “inconsistent” with the Jan. 20 executive order.

Those documents include the commission’s 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, EEOC Strategic Plan 2022-2026, and the EEOC Strategic Enforcement Plan Fiscal Years 2024-2028.

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