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Washington Post
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
What Trump's order on ‘disparate impact' means for civil rights
President Donald Trump on Wednesday moved to dislodge a cornerstone of modern civil rights law through a sweeping executive order that strips the federal government of the key tool it used to enforce antidiscrimination laws — a concept known as disparate-impact liability. The order has alarmed civil rights advocates, who warn it could make it harder to shield people from exclusionary policies in areas like housing, employment, education and criminal justice. 'This effort by the administration to remove this tool sets us back decades,' said Jenny Yang, who chaired the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission under President Barack Obama and led the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs under President Joe Biden. Trump's order directs federal agencies to 'deprioritize enforcement' of statutes and regulations that include disparate-impact liability, which has long enabled courts to stop policies and practices that unfairly exclude people on the basis of protected characteristics such as race, gender and disability. The order also instructs the U.S. attorney general to repeal key components of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that bar any program receiving federal financial support from discrimination based on 'race, color, or national origin.' The Trump administration argues that disparate-impact liability has handcuffed employers, requiring them to consider race and 'racial balancing' to avoid legal liability, which they say is a threat to meritocracy. 'It not only undermines our national values, but also runs contrary to equal protection under the law and, therefore, violates our Constitution,' the order reads. Derek Black, who directs the Constitutional Law Center at the University of South Carolina, said the administration was misstating the law. 'If it were true that disparate-impact liability creates 'a near insurmountable presumption of unlawful discrimination,' we might have rid the country of disparities long ago,' he wrote on X. In Yang's view, the past several decades show how civil rights enforcement has shaped workplaces for the better. The concept of disparate impact, she said, prevents employers from excluding qualified candidates because of their race, gender or another protected characteristic. 'It really reinforced merit-based hiring, so it's quite the opposite of requiring racial balancing,' Yang said. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court set precedent on this topic when it unanimously ruled in Griggs v. Duke Power Co. that the company could not use arbitrary tests or requirements in hiring and promotion if it couldn't prove they served a genuine business need. At the time, Duke Power required a high school diploma and aptitude test to get a promotion — a rule that was not job-related and disproportionately affected Black workers who had less access to quality schools and lower diploma attainment because of segregation. Crucially, the court found that even if the company was not purposefully trying to discriminate based on race, if the policies had a discriminatory effect, they were illegal. After Griggs, companies had to consider a wider pool of applicants, Yang said. That eliminated requirements like nonessential widespread height and weight specifications, which disproportionately excluded women, Latinos and some Asians. While at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Yang read a report that found companies were missing out on hidden talent because their application-analysis algorithms overlooked prospective workers who had large breaks in their employment history — a bias that could impact women with children, caregivers, retirees who wanted to rejoin the workforce or people with disabilities. 'There's been an effort to say that with discrimination, the only kind of harm we care about is the egregious, smoking-gun evidence of animus or harassment, or where somebody is bigoted,' Yang said. 'But there is often very significant harm to individuals from organizational practices that are discriminatory, yet very difficult to prove.' Yang said while Trump's executive order creates uncertainty, it doesn't stop private individuals from suing over workplace and other kinds of discrimination. States and localities are also strengthening their nondiscrimination laws, she said. The executive order charts a new course for federal agencies, de-emphasizing the enforcement of antidiscrimination rules. As Trump targets parts of the Civil Rights Act, his administration will have the burden of demonstrating how the law is unconstitutional, Yang said. 'He can't just vaguely disregard Congress's mandate as also interpreted by the Supreme Court,' she said.
Yahoo
18-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Chicago employees of federal contractor oversight agency put on paid leave: ‘It's open season out there for all these contractors'
The Chicago staffers of the U.S. Department of Labor's federal contractor oversight agency were put on paid administrative leave this week, along with workers in most other regions of the country. The staffers put on paid leave are employees of the agency's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which investigates federal contractors to ensure they comply with nondiscrimination laws. Employees in the OFCCP's national enforcement branch and staff throughout five of the agency's six regions were notified they were being placed on paid administrative leave, according to a Wednesday email to staff from OFCCP Director Catherine Eschbach, who was appointed to the role at the end of March. Bloomberg Law first reported on the email, which the Tribune reviewed. Brent Barron, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 648, which represents OFCCP employees in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin, estimated that 20 to 25 Chicago-based employees of the agency are affected, around a dozen of whom are in the union's bargaining unit. Most of those workers had already agreed to take early retirement or deferred resignation offers that would have ended their time on the job Friday, Barron said. Those put on paid leave include investigators, clerical employees and regional office staff, Barron said. 'Their primary function was to go out and investigate the contractors and their hiring practices to make sure that when they hired somebody … they weren't discriminating against anybody,' Barron said. Now, Barron said, there is no one left in the Midwest to perform that work. 'It's open season out there for all these contractors,' he said. The Wednesday email said employees were being placed on leave 'pending further compliance' with an executive order from President Donald Trump that significantly reduced the scope of the agency's work. That executive order, titled 'Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,' rescinded the 1965 executive order from former President Lyndon B. Johnson that established much of the agency's authority to oversee federal contractors. 'This agency now has a significantly reduced scope of mission,' Eschbach wrote in the Wednesday email. 'This action is consistent with the iterative process to 'right-size' and optimize the agency, consistent with its current statutory functions.' Staffers in the agency's Southwest and Rocky Mountain region and in certain branches of the Washington, D.C., office were not impacted, according to the email. Neither the Labor Department nor the White House responded to requests for comment. The Chicago staffers worked out of the Kluczynski Federal Building at 230 S. Dearborn St.
Chicago Tribune
18-04-2025
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago employees of federal contractor oversight agency put on paid leave: ‘It's open season out there for all these contractors'
The Chicago staffers of the U.S. Department of Labor's federal contractor oversight agency were put on paid administrative leave this week, along with workers in most other regions of the country. The staffers put on paid leave are employees of the agency's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which investigates federal contractors to ensure they comply with nondiscrimination laws. Employees in the OFCCP's national enforcement branch and staff throughout five of the agency's six regions were notified they were being placed on paid administrative leave, according to a Wednesday email to staff from OFCCP director Catherine Eschbach, who was appointed to the role at the end of March. Bloomberg Law first reported on the email, which the Tribune reviewed. Brent Barron, the president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 648, which represents OFCCP employees in Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Wisconsin, estimated that 20 to 25 Chicago-based employees of the agency are affected, around a dozen of whom are in the union's bargaining unit. Most of those workers had already agreed to take early retirement or deferred resignation offers that would have ended their time on the job Friday, Barron said. Those put on paid leave include investigators, clerical employees and regional office staff, Barron said. 'Their primary function was to go out and investigate the contractors and their hiring practices to make sure that when they hired somebody… they weren't discriminating against anybody,' Barron said. Now, Barron said, there is no one left in the Midwest to perform that work. 'It's open season out there for all these contractors,' he said. The Wednesday email said employees were being placed on leave 'pending further compliance' with an executive order from President Donald Trump that significantly reduced the scope of the agency's work. That executive order, titled 'Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,' rescinded the 1965 executive order from former President Lyndon B. Johnson that established much of the agency's authority to oversee federal contractors. 'This agency now has a significantly reduced scope of mission,' Eschbach wrote in the Wednesday email. 'This action is consistent with the iterative process to 'right-size' and optimize the agency, consistent with its current statutory functions.' Staffers in the agency's Southwest and Rocky Mountain region and in certain branches of the Washington D.C. office were not impacted, according to the email. Neither the labor department nor the White House responded to requests for comment.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arizona's attorney general and her gang want to beat Trump at his game
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and attorney general pals from other states scored another victory in court this week over King Donald when a federal judge blocked a Trump administration funding freeze on federal grants. Mayes released a statement saying, 'This was an illegal and reckless attempt to withhold critical funding that states rely on to serve their communities. This ruling is a victory for Arizonans and millions of Americans who depend on these essential federal funds. 'I won't stand by while the Trump administration puts itself above Congress and withholds resources that families, public safety, and healthcare providers depend on.' That's good. But it is not good enough, and Mayes knows it. In addition to being a very fine attorney, Mayes understands politics. She knows that it in addition to winning in court, you have to win in the court of public opinion, just as Trump has done. He has managed to convince Americans that he is working in their best interest while doing just the opposite. Mayes and her gang of Democratic attorneys general want to reach out to those people, hear from those feeling the pain of Elon Musk's chainsaw approach to downsizing. To do that, they are taking their show on the road. Mayes, along with Attorneys General Keith Ellison of Minnesota, Dan Rayfield of Oregon and Raul Torrez of New Mexico held what they called a Community Impact Hearing before a crowd of about 400 people on Wednesday at Central High School. They're planning other stops in other states. The idea is to let regular people tell their stories, to let them vent about the impact that unchecked funding cuts and layoffs are having on people Trump courted before the election. For example, veterans. At the AGs' town hall in Phoenix, a veteran named Tim Cox, who works at the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, said he expects to be laid off sometime soon, along with 90% of the office's workforce, and added, 'OFCC is the only federal agency that takes complaints of discrimination from veterans, and this is reducing our agency down to nothing. In less than two months, this administration has proven itself to be the most anti-veteran administration.' Lawsuits aimed at protecting those who are harmed by unjustified cuts are important. In fact, Mayes announced on Thursday that she and her associate attorneys general filed another lawsuit, this one against the mass layoffs of federal probationary employees. Opinion: Musk should cut his own handouts before Social Security Also important, however, is hearing from the people harmed and spreading the word. As Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said, 'We believe the public doesn't like a lot of things that have been happening from Washington. You have a chance to tell your truth, to listen to your neighbors.' This is particularly important since Republican members of Congress are being told not to hold town halls after GOP representatives who did so recently were confronted by constituents furious over the Trump administration cuts. Mayes gets this. It's why at the town hall with other AGs, she took a shot at a couple of Arizona's Republican members of Congress, saying, 'Where is (Rep.) David Schweikert? Where is (Rep.) Juan Ciscomani? If I have to, I'll go hold the town hall in David Schweikert's district, or Juan Ciscomani's district, if that's what it takes to give his constituents the right to speak out about this.' The AGs are doing what Democrats in Washington should be doing. They're going on the offensive, daring Trump's sycophants in Congress to explain their fealty in light of the misery and confusion and chaos it's causing. Because there's an old saying in politics: If you're explaining, you're losing. Reach Montini at For more opinions content, please subscribe. This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Trump funding cuts are unpopular, and Democrat AGs know it | Opinion
Yahoo
11-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
A Trump executive order reportedly has ended a racial discrimination probe at Tesla
Policy proposals from the new administration — and the seemingly unmatched power granted to Elon Musk and his allies — sure do suggest that Donald Trump is trying to serve his megarich benefactor more than nearly anyone else. Whether it's punishing South Africa for attempting to stem the impact of apartheid racism or giving bigoted white men unfettered access to the upper echelon of the U.S. government, it seems Trump and his allies are ensuring that Musk gets ample returns on the multimillion-dollar investment he made in Trump's campaign. And the apparent benefits to Musk could also include the suspension of a federal probe into allegations of racial discrimination at his company Tesla. An executive order Trump signed Jan. 21 as part of his crusade against diversity required the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, which is part of the Department of Labor and investigates discrimination allegations, to immediately halt '[p]romoting 'diversity'' and '[h]olding Federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking 'affirmative action.'' According to The San Francisco Standard, the order essentially required the compliance office to stop an audit of Tesla over allegations of discrimination at one of its automobile factories. The Standard reported: The Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs enforced equal employment laws for federal contractors. The office's employees now have little to do besides notifying companies that they will no longer be audited for potential discrimination — and, in some cases, that they won't have to pay outstanding fines. The Standard reported that Tesla was recently notified that the discrimination probe had been halted. Other large corporations were made aware of dropped investigations into their workplaces, too: The OFCCP sent Tesla a letter last week stating that its review had stopped. 'We had to mail the companies we audit to tell them they no longer have to comply with our rules or regulations,' said Aliyah Levin, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2391, which represents 1,200 federal workers in San Francisco and eight Western states. Tesla's letter was one among dozens in California alone, according to Levin. OFCCP investigators were set to review the practices of more than 2,000 U.S. companies this year, including 211 in California, according to federal data that is no longer online. Investigations have been canceled at the San Francisco offices of Google, Meta, Blackrock, Sony, and PG&E, among others. According to The Standard, a federal lawsuit against Tesla from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is ongoing. When the lawsuit was announced in 2023, the EEOC said: 'Black employees regularly encountered graffiti, including variations of the N-word, swastikas, threats, and nooses, on desks and other equipment, in bathroom stalls, within elevators, and even on new vehicles rolling off the production line.' The EEOC also said that 'those who raised objections to racial hostility suffered various forms of retaliation, including terminations, changes in job duties, transfers, and other adverse employment actions.' Tesla has called the allegations 'a false narrative that ignores Tesla's track record of equal employment opportunity.' It's unclear how the lawsuit progresses from here. Trump's acting EEOC chair, Andrea Lucas, has already gotten to work pursuing his priorities of rolling back protections for transgender and nonbinary people. How she'll approach a discrimination suit against one of Trump's closest allies remains an open question. This article was originally published on
