On April 24, 2025, Judges Landya McCafferty and Stephanie Gallagher, sitting in the United States District Courts in New Hampshire and Maryland, respectively, issued rulings blocking the U.S. Department of Education (DOE)...more
On April 23, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) titled Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy, which follows a string of prior EOs aimed at removing DEI programs, which we covered here and here....more
4/25/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Disparate Impact ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Executive Orders ,
Government Agencies ,
Judicial Review ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Title VII ,
Trump Administration
The EEO-1 Report is an annual filing required by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that provides a summary of an employer’s workforce demographics. The Report includes information on a company’s workforce...more
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday issued a joint press release announcing new “technical assistance documents” identifying specific Diversity, Equity and...more
On March 17, 2025, in an unprecedented action, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”), under the direction of Acting Chair Andrea R. Lucas, issued 20 extensive letters to large, prominent law firms containing...more
3/20/2025
/ Affirmative Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Compliance ,
Discrimination ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
Law Practice Management ,
Title VII
On March 14, 2025, a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an order granting the Trump Administration’s motion to stay enforcement of the District Court’s nationwide preliminary injunction on two...more
On February 21, 2025, the United States District Court for the District of Maryland issued a nationwide preliminary injunction halting the enforcement of three key provisions of President Trump’s Executive Orders intended to...more
2/26/2025
/ Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Due Process ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Executive Orders ,
False Claims Act (FCA) ,
Federal Contractors ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Government Agencies ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Trump Administration
On February 5, 2025, newly confirmed U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a memo to all U.S. Department of Justice Departments targeting private employers’ use of DEI initiatives. The memo is titled “Ending Illegal DEI and...more
Real World Impact: On January 21, 2025, on his second day in office, President Trump issued an Executive Order entitled “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (the “Executive Order”). The...more
Within days of his second inauguration, President Trump issued a number of Executive Orders. While the impact of his Executive Orders will be seen with time, many employers may be left wondering how the Executive Orders...more
Real World Impact: A recently enacted Massachusetts law requires employers with 100 or more employees in the state to submit a copy of their most recently filed EEO reports to the state by February 1 annually (or the next...more
Real World Impact: Federal contractors have until December 9, 2024 to file written objections to disclosure of their EEO-1 reports by the OFCCP in response to a recent FOIA request....more
Read World Impact: Maryland recently enacted the Wage Range Transparency law, which went into effect on October 1, 2024. We previously provided a Legal Alert on this topic, however, the Maryland Department Labor has since...more
Yesterday (March 25, 2024), the U.S. Department of Labor announced that the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) will begin accepting online submissions on April 1 from covered contractors to certify they...more
Executive Summary: Following the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard/UNC, Attorneys General from 13 states and United States Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas sent letters to business leaders, warning of potential legal...more
11/6/2023
/ Affirmative Action ,
College Admissions ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Race Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard College ,
Students for Fair Admissions v University of North Carolina
Executive Summary: On August 4, 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) published a final rule amending the 2020 pre-enforcement regulations colloquially referred to as the...more
Executive Summary: On June 23, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 20-year precedent in two lawsuits: Students for Fair Admissions v. President and Fellows of Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v....more
7/25/2023
/ Affirmative Action ,
Civil Rights Act ,
College Admissions ,
Diversity ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Educational Institutions ,
Equal Protection ,
Fourteenth Amendment ,
Race Discrimination ,
SCOTUS ,
Students for Fair Admissions v Harvard College ,
Students for Fair Admissions v University of North Carolina ,
Title VII
On April 18, 2023, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued an updated scheduling letter. OFCCP rejected the vast majority of the comments submitted by the contractor community in response to the...more
OFCCP announced yesterday, March 20, 2023, that the Contractor Certification Portal will open in ten days. Contractors have until June 29, 2023 to certify that they are in compliance with OFCCP’s affirmative action and...more
On August 19, OFCCP published a Notice in the Federal Register alerting federal contractors that it received a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) seeking all federal...more
Executive Summary: Just two days before the Thanksgiving holiday, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a proposed scheduling letter and itemized listing seeking a number of additional documents...more
On March 21, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) dialing back the level of transparency and evidentiary standards for issuing pre-enforcement notices...more
On March 15, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) issued a new Directive clarifying covered contractors’ obligation to conduct pay equity audits on an annual basis. Quite notably, the OFCCP issued...more
Equal Pay Day marks the point when the average woman’s current earnings, combined with what she earned in the previous year, equals what the average man was paid last year. This year, equal pay day came early because the...more
March 30, 2022 is the deadline for federal contractors, including subcontractors, to register in OFCCP’s recently launched Contractor Portal. Beginning March 31, contractors will have until June 30 to verify compliance with...more
2/21/2022
/ Affirmative Action ,
Data Collection ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Federal Contractors ,
Filing Deadlines ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
OFCCP ,
Portal