On Tuesday, the Trump Administration nominated Brittany Bull Panuccio to the spot on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that has been vacant since Keith Sonderling’s term expired last December.

(Mr. Sonderling, another Trump appointee, is now Assistant Secretary of Labor.)

Ms. Panuccio received her undergraduate and law degrees from Northwestern University and after one year in private practice worked for the U.S. government, primarily with the Department of Education under then-Secretary Betsy DeVos. She also worked with the Trump Administration on the Supreme Court nomination of then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh. She is currently an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Florida.

Although it isn’t clear whether Ms. Panuccio has employment law experience, she does have civil rights experience, having been involved in putting together the Trump Administration’s Title IX regulations. The Trump regulations, which took effect in 2020 and were replaced in 2024 by the Biden Administration, most significantly provided robust due process rights to students who were accused of sexual harassment or other misconduct. (In January of this year, a federal judge in Kentucky vacated the 2024 Biden regulations, and so the 2020 Trump regulations are back in place.)

EEOC will have a quorum again!

If Ms. Panuccio is confirmed, the overarching big flippin’ deal is that the five-member EEOC will have three members and therefore a quorum, this time with a Republican majority.* That will allow the EEOC to issue guidance and regulations, and to rescind Biden-era guidance and regulations.

*At the beginning of this year, the EEOC had four members: Chair Charlotte Burrows, Jocelyn Samuels, and Kalpana Kotagal – all Democrats – and Andrea Lucas, a Republican. Shortly after he took office, President Trump appointed Ms. Lucas as Acting Chair and fired Ms. Burrows and Ms. Samuels, leaving only two Commissioners and no more quorum. (Ms. Samuels has filed suit over her termination, but Ms. Burrows has not.)

Post-quorum, four things employers can expect

With that introduction, here are four things employers can expect from the new EEOC (assuming, of course, that Ms. Panuccio is confirmed):

No. 1: Complete or partial repeal of the regulations issued last summer under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. At least the parts that require employers to make reasonable accommodations for employees having elective abortions.

No. 2: Aggressive stance against Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs where distinctions are based on race, sex, or another characteristic protected under the federal anti-discrimination laws. Chair Lucas has already made it clear that she considers this to be unlawful, although she is not opposed to all DEI measures. Rather, she says, DEI programs and membership in employer affinity groups should be based on EEO-neutral characteristics, such as economic disadvantage or shared interests.

No. 3: More aggressive enforcement against employers who discriminate based on religion or fail to accommodate religion, and more interest than before in protecting employees who are discriminated against because they are Christian or Jewish.

No. 4: No more pronoun enforcement and less-aggressive stance on gender identity. The EEOC is bound by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, in which the Court held that Title VII prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity as well as biological sex. So the EEOC can’t just thumb its nose at the Supreme Court and declare that gender identity discrimination doesn’t violate Title VII. But the Supreme Court didn't address pronouns, so the EEOC has more latitude there. And even with gender identity, the agency can lighten up on enforcement, and no doubt will. During the Biden Administration, the EEOC was hyper-aware of these issues and a fairly aggressive enforcer. Those days are likely to be over, at least until January 2029.

No. 5 (BONUS): A less aggressive stance (if any) on disparate impact claims. This last isn’t a result of the Republican majority that Ms. Panuccio’s confirmation would bring, but because of President Trump’s recent Executive Order essentially directing the government to stand down on disparate impact claims. As a result of the Trump E.O., employers can expect much less, if any, federal enforcement activity in this area. However, private plaintiff’s attorneys are still free to pursue these claims.

Off topic: In semi-related news, this week the Administration sent termination notices to more than 300 employees of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the subdivision of the U.S. Department of Labor that enforces affirmative action requirements for federal contractors. (You may need a paid subscription to access the article at the link.) Our own Cara Crotty called this in March.

You may remember that, earlier this year, President Trump rescinded Executive Order 11246, issued in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which required certain federal contractors to have affirmative action plans based on race and sex. At least on paper, federal contractors are still required to comply with their affirmative action obligations under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act. Because these are actual statutes enacted by Congress and not executive orders, a President cannot rescind them by executive order. But it remains to be seen how aggressive the much-smaller OFCCP will be in enforcing these laws.

I’ll go out on a limb and predict “not aggressive.”

Off-off topic: Are Catholics who root for, say, the Detroit Tigers now compelled to root for the Chicago White Sox? Asking for a friend.

Off-off-off topic, but very important: To all you moms out there, and to all of you who have a mom and/or love a mom, we wish you the happiest of Mother’s Day weekends!