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Trump Purports To Fire Two Democratic EEOC Commissioners

WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 27: U.S. President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House after returning from a weekend trip on January 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. Over the weekend, Trump traveled to N... WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 27: U.S. President Donald Trump walks across the South Lawn of the White House after returning from a weekend trip on January 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. Over the weekend, Trump traveled to North Carolina and California to survey storm and fire damage, to Nevada for a rally and to Florida to address a Congressional Republican conference. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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President Donald Trump fired two Democratic commissioners on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission late on Monday night, likely violating legal statute. 

Trump had already appointed Andrea Lucas, a Republican commissioner, to take over the role of chair from previous Democratic Chair Charlotte Burrows. But late on Monday he dismissed Burrows, whose term was supposed to run through July 2028, as well as Democratic commissioner Jocelyn Samuels, whose term was supposed to end in 2026. 

“Late last night, I was informed by the White House that President Donald Trump was removing me from my position as a Commissioner of the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), along with fellow Commissioner Jocelyn Samuels,” Burrows said in a statement released Tuesday evening. 

Burrows added in her statement that she “will explore all legal options available to me.”

Samuels released a separate statement Tuesday afternoon saying she received an email from the White House at 10:30 p.m. ET on Monday night saying she was being removed from her position, which also included a critique of her “views on DEIA initiatives and sex discrimination.”

“Removing me from my position before the expiration of my Congressionally directed term is unprecedented, violates the law, and represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the EEOC as an independent agency,” Samuels wrote in her statement. “I deeply regret this Administration’s short-sighted and unprecedented decision to remove me from a position to which I remain committed. I am considering my legal options.”

Firing EEOC commissioners “is completely unprecedented,” David Lopez, Rutgers Law School co-dean and former EEOC general counsel, told Talking Points Memo. “It’s contrary to the statute.”

“The president does not have the power to fire a commissioner,” agreed Gaylynn Burroughs, vice president for education & workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center. The statute itself states that members of the commission are appointed by presidents and confirmed by the senate for a five-year term, and “all members of the Commission shall continue to serve until their successors are appointed and qualified.” The law was “meant to insulate the commission” from political forces, Burroughs said. 

“This is a huge overreach,” Burroughs said. “It is a complete abuse of power.”

The Democratic commissioners had been set to maintain their majority through 2026, after Samuels’s term came to an end, even with Lucas as chair. It’s not clear what will now happen to the work of the commissioners, though Trump’s moves may open the door to a GOP majority. By statute the commission is supposed to be bipartisan: commissioners serve staggered, five-year terms, and no more than three members of the commission can be from the same political party, which would mean Trump would have to nominate Democratic commissioners as well as Republican ones. Even then, whoever he picked would have to be confirmed by the Senate, and “in theory it shouldn’t be a rubber stamp,” Burroughs said.

In the meantime, the agency’s policy work will likely come to a standstill. Without Burrows and Samuels, there aren’t enough commissioners for a quorum. “It’s deadlocked,” Burroughs said. 

The agency’s litigation on behalf of workers who say they were discriminated against at work could also slow to a crawl. Shortly after Biden was elected, former Chair Janet Dhillon changed EEOC procedure so that the full commission voted on whether or not to pursue every single case the agency considered. That rule has been relaxed, but a lot of litigation still has to go through the commissioners first, and that will come to a halt. “It already takes a very long time for people to have their cases processed and come to a resolution,” Burroughs said. “This will slow things down even further.” 

A slower agency will mean justice, and potentially someone getting their job and their pay restored after it was unfairly taken away due to discrimination, will be delayed. “When you’re seeking help because you’re being discriminated against at work you need that help fast,” Burroughs said. “Playing games with the agency that people must rely on in order to move forward to maintain their livelihoods, that’s huge, that’s cruel.”

What may not be affected are cases that the agency had already brought. Even cases related to harassment based on gender identity, which Lucas has opposed, should continue to move forward, Lopez said. 

The firings came on the same day that Trump fired not just National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, as was widely expected and with precedent after Biden removed the Trump-appointed general counsel on his first day in office, but Democratic board member Gwynne Wilcox. Wilcox’s term was supposed to run through August 2028, and her removal also violates precedent. She vowed to pursue “all legal avenues to challenge my removal.” The firings will likely move to the courts, where the outcome is unclear. In October, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal that sought to give the president power to fire leaders of independent federal agencies, contra a 1935 Supreme Court precedent that paved the way for job protections for those who run independent agencies. The court, per custom, made no comment when it turned the case down.

Trump has also fired at least 12 inspectors general that oversee various cabinet-level agencies, violating a law that requires a president give Congress 30 days’ notice and reasonings for the firings. He ordered a pause in all federal loans and grants, potentially running afoul of the power Congress has to appropriate spending.

Between the firings at the EEOC and NLRB, “this is a really horrible day for workers,” Lopez said.

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Notable Replies

  1. They just don’t care what is written down, even if it’s written in stone. Someone needs to check on the bronze plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty to make sure Emma Lazarus’ poem is still up.

  2. What’s power if you can’t inflict it?

    I’d say we gave the nuke codes to the guy at the end of the bar, but the truth is he took them. In the name of Jesus, with the backing of the churches of the confederacy.

    It’s not going to get any prettier.

  3. I assume it’s still there, but that someone has Sharpied in “white” in a few key spots.

  4. The way things are going, people are gonna be standing on the edge of a precipice with ICE behind them, saying “but this violates statute.”

    They mean to go full Gilead.

  5. I urge Democratic commissioner Jocelyn Samuels to STAY in her job and continue working until the Republican “Gestapo” come to her office to escort her off the premises. Then I urge her to livestream that event.

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