Trump’s Acting EEOC Chair Hires Christian Conservative Activist Who Sued The Agency

Andrea Lucas, the Trump-appointed acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, announced on social media Tuesday that she has hired as her chief of staff Shannon Royce, a long-time Christian conservative activist who led a lawsuit against the agency in the recent past over its defense of trans employees who faced discrimination at work. Royce, a veteran of the first Trump administration and the Family Research Council, has also vocally opposed abortion and same-sex marriage.

Lucas, soon after becoming acting chair of the commission, said that one of her priorities would be “to defend the biological and binary reality of sex.” She’s ordered the agency to withdraw from litigation it had already brought on behalf of transgender workers and to pause investigations into pending claims. She’s called for rescinding harassment guidance the agency released after the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that states harassment based on gender identity qualifies as illegal, sex-based harassment. (Lucas also voted against that guidance in 2024 when she was a commissioner.) She has also been vocal about opposing final rules put out by the agency to enforce the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, a law passed by Congress in 2022, that include protections for abortion care. “President Trump’s series of civil rights Executive Orders has given EEOC the most ambitious civil rights agenda since practically the 1960s and 1970s — and I am passionate about achieving it,” Lucas said in a Tuesday LinkedIn post announcing that Royce had been hired.

Royce’s appointment “signals a more aggressive stance on carrying out the most extreme elements of the administration’s priorities,” an EEOC employee with knowledge of the situation said.

As chief of staff to the chair, Royce will have considerable influence in the agency; decisions such as what litigation to pursue on behalf of workers, how to settle claims that they bring, what policies the agency should pursue, and what amicus briefs to sign onto all run through the chair’s office. It also directs the Office of Field Programs, which is in charge of all investigations into claims of workplace discrimination across the country. “The chief of staff will likely have a tremendous amount of responsibility and influence over those decisions,” said the employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity to express concern about the pick.

Royce was most recently the president of the Christian Employers Alliance, which calls itself “a watchman and protector” of Christian business owners. The organization sued the EEOC in 2021 over its interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, arguing that treating sex-based discrimination as including discrimination based on gender identity forced religious employers to cover gender-affirming health care. Christian Employers Alliance won; a federal district court in North Dakota ruled that the group’s members can’t be required to cover gender transition services. Royce, in a statement at the time, said she was “overjoyed” that members “will not have to choose between the biblically based employee benefits and quality health care they provide, and the threat of federal enforcement and massive costs for practicing their faith.” Later, in 2023, Royce submitted a comment to the EEOC when it was developing rules for the PWFA saying that including abortion care would “hijack” the law and “threaten” pro-life employers.

Royce left the Christian Employers Alliance in December, according to her LinkedIn profile. The following month, the group initiated another suit against the EEOC, challenging its guidance that discrimination against employees based on gender identity is discrimination based on sex under Title VII, and challenging its inclusion of abortion in the protections of the PWFA.

The EEOC declined to comment when asked about how Royce’s past positions and antagonism toward the EEOC fit with the mission of the agency. Royce did not reply to a request for comment.

The hiring comes after President Trump has taken unprecedented, and possibly illegal, action at the EEOC, an independent executive branch agency whose members are confirmed by the Senate. In January, he fired two Democratic commissioners at the agency, former Chair Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels, even though their terms were supposed to run through 2028 and 2026, respectively. Samuels has sued the Trump administration over her firing, calling it “abrupt and unlawful.”

Royce was previously tapped by President Trump in his first term to lead the Center for Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, where she became what Politico described as a “pivotal player” in efforts to weaken federal protections for abortion and transgender care. Before that, she worked in leadership roles at the Family Research Council, a nonprofit that advocates for a “biblical worldview” in public policy, that opposes same-sex marriage and supports conversion therapy, and that the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group. After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the constitutional right to abortion enshrined in Roe v. Wade, Royce, a lifelong Southern Baptist, said she was “overcome with joy,” saying the “unborn need protection” while “society actively seeks the destruction of life.” During the #MeToo movement of women speaking out about sexual harassment, she posted on social media saying that she was “concerned by the extremes of the #metoo movement and the presumption that if a woman says it it must be true.”

“It is bizarre to see how someone whose career has been so hostile to LGBTQ people pretty broadly is going to be chief of staff of the acting chair of an agency that exists to protect the civil rights of people at work, including LGBTQ people,” the EEOC employee said. She’s a “regressive pick,” the employee added, “on both reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights.”

Royce’s hiring comes as religious conservatives have been given unprecedented access to the White House in Trump’s second term. The White House Faith Office has been given physical office space in the West Wing, and leaders have been singing hymns and offering prayers in official meetings. Lucas herself recently excused EEOC staff from working on Good Friday, which is not a federal holiday.