The Trump administration’s latest indication that it has zero regard for America’s most vulnerable came in a social media post last week. Andrea Lucas, chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, invited white men to bring charges of discrimination to the commission’s attention. The idea that the agency would focus its resources on the group that’s already the most advantaged demographic in the workplace, white men, is both a troubling departure from the letter and spirit of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and a worrisome potential weaponization of Title VII, the element of the law that prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender or national origin.
For years, President Donald Trump has relentlessly spouted sentiments against “DEI,” or initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Lucas’ post appears to echo the belief among straight, white MAGA men that they are somehow victims. This is, however, about more than DEI. As important as diversity efforts were in building inclusive workplace cultures, DEI has historically been based more in good policy than codified law. The civil rights legislation that helped to create the EEOC and gave authority to civil rights divisions and employment opportunity officers within numerous federal agencies should be understood not merely as law but also as a network of systemic guardrails designed to protect our workplaces.
Lucas’ post appears to echo the belief among straight, white MAGA men that they are somehow victims.
My career experience brings this issue home for me. I spent 10 years as a senior trial attorney at the EEOC. As part of my work, I supported investigations and litigated cases dealing with discrimination in the workplace. The legal authority for much of the work we in the agency did came from such statutes as the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Title VII. That 1964 legislation is among the most important civil rights laws that our nation has in keeping workplaces free from harassment, hostility, bigotry and bias. It was effectively conceived in the same breath that gave the EEOC life as an agency. The central premise around both was to preserve the federal rights of some of America’s most historically disadvantaged groups, namely Blacks and women.
As someone who litigated in that agency for more than a decade, I know there is no shortage of race- and sex-based discrimination cases brought by Black workers and women alone — a volume such that there would be no need for an open call for instances of discrimination against white men in order to create more work for the agency.
It is, of course, not uncommon for leaders to make decisions about the direction and priorities of their agency. But Lucas’ focus is on helping the group historically least affected by workplace discrimination. The rarity of such occurrences means there’s no need for an open appeal to white men to file suits alleging discrimination or hostile work environments. To the extent that such discrimination happens, it does not warrant a call from an official social media account of the EEOC chair that excludes mention of any of the protected classes covered by the statutes the agency enforces.
The EEOC investigates and litigates against discriminatory hiring practices. At a time when Black unemployment, at 8.3%, is steadily creeping upward and is more than double the unemployment rate among white men, it’s backward for Lucas to direct resources and agency priorities toward investigating proverbial bogeyman discrimination.
This is not to dismiss the idea that discrimination against white men could happen in the workplace. It is, however, much less likely.
This is not to dismiss the idea that discrimination against white men could happen in the workplace. It is, however, much less likely given employment statistics and who is most commonly in charge. Considerations around already-bleak employment prospects for Black job seekers fall much more closely in line with the historical mission and work of the EEOC as well as the spirit of our nation’s civil rights laws. Likewise, instances of workplace harassment are far more common among women than men, even accounting for underreporting by men.
To be clear, no illegal or discriminatory treatment of any group in the workplace should be tolerated. But much as this administration has done in other areas, Lucas and the EEOC she leads are choosing to center white men, this time as part of a narrative in which they are victims in spaces where the actual instances of workplace discrimination against them are incredibly low. This is like making space to help folks at the front of the line get even more space at … the front of the line. It doesn’t make sense.
This “solution” to a nonexistent problem degrades our national regard for those who truly experience workplace discrimination and risks entrenching an administration-favored double standard that the 1964 act and subsequent legislation have for decades functioned to erode.
