Four EEOC Nominees Confirmed

In one of the last acts of the previous session, the U.S. Senate confirmed to posts with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) four nominees who had been serving under recess appointments since April. The newly confirmed include the Commission’s Chair, two commissioners, and the agency’s General Counsel.

Chair Jacqueline Berrien comes to the EEOC from the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund where she was the associate director-counsel. Commissioner Chai Feldblum had been teaching at Georgetown University since 1991. Commissioner Victoria Lipnic was of counsel with the Washington office of the law firm Seyfarth Shaw.

The EEOC now has a full complement of members, all of whom are serving staggered five year terms. By law, no more than three of the five may be from the same political party.

Also confirmed was P. David Lopez to a four year term as General Counsel, the first to come from the EEOC’s field litigation staff where he was a Supervisory Trial Attorney in the Commission’s Phoenix District Office.