Trump’s Shakeup of the NLRB and EEOC: Spring 2025 Update

In his first few months in office, President Donald Trump has taken significant steps to reshape the composition and enforcement priorities of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), two of the most powerful federal employment agencies. Here is what employers need to know about the current state of play.

The National Labor Relations Board

On January 27, 2025, Trump fired NLRB member and former chair Gwynne Wilcox and NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. While Abruzzo’s termination was anticipated and no legal challenge is expected (the NLRB’s general counsel operates under the authority of the executive branch), Wilcox’s removal was unprecedented. It marked the first time a president fired an NLRB member before the end of their scheduled term and left the NLRB with only two active members (Trump-appointed chair Marvin Kaplan and Democrat-appointed member David Prouty) on its five-member board. Trump fired Wilcox—who was appointed by President Joe Biden and serving a term set to expire in 2028—because Trump lacked confidence in her ability to support his administration’s policy initiatives.

Wilcox swiftly challenged her removal in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that, under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), she could only be removed “upon notice and hearing” for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause,” a concept which the Trump administration has challenged on constitutional grounds as usurping the president’s executive powers. On March 6, 2025 (in a consolidated decision that also addressed the similar removal of Cathy Harris, a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board), Judge Beryl A. Howell held that Wilcox was “illegally” fired and ordered the NLRB to reinstate her for the remainder of her term. The Trump administration immediately filed an emergency motion to stay the court’s decision while it pursues an appeal, and on March 28, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia granted their motion in a divided opinion, finding that it was likely to succeed in its constitutional challenges to the NLRA’s removal restrictions. As a result of the stay, Wilcox was removed from the NLRB, effective immediately.

With only two out of five active members, the NLRB is currently without a quorum, meaning that it cannot take formal official action on unfair labor practice charges, issue decisions, set precedent, or hear currently pending appeals in connection with decisions that have been appealed to the full NLRB. This “freeze” on the NLRB could prove to be a mixed bag for employers. On one hand, rulings on pending cases before the NLRB that may be unfavorable to employers will not be issued until a final decision is reached on Wilcox’s termination. On the other hand, prior NLRB decisions that favored collective bargaining rights and expanded employee protections generally—such as the McLaren Macomb decision—remain the law of the land. Critically, while such decisions remain in effect for now, the NLRB has rescinded many of the prior regime’s policy memoranda interpreting those decisions, including the memorandum interpreting McLaren Macomb. Moreover, newly appointed NLRB General Counsel Crystal Carey will have significant power to define the NLRB’s enforcement priorities and shape labor law policy during Trump’s second administration.

While the NLRB reshuffling plays out in the courts, regional NLRB offices will continue to investigate unfair labor practice charges, but employers should expect delays in NLRB operations. To the extent that a new Republican majority ultimately takes hold of the NLRB, employers should be prepared in case they agency revisits or reverses key pro-union and pro-employee decisions established during the Biden administration on issues such as joint-employer status, worker classification, employment policies, and protected concerted activity.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

On January 21, 2025, Trump named Andrea R. Lucas as the acting Chair of the EEOC, and one week later, he fired two Democratic commissioners, Jocelyn Samuels and Charlotte Burrows, along with General Counsel Karla Gilbride. The moves eliminated a Democratic majority on the EEOC and are designed to advance the Trump administration’s civil rights policy shifts, especially around gender identity and female reproduction issues. Acting Chair Lucas, whom Trump nominated to a new five-year term on March 24, 2025, has already set forth policies that she intends to implement, including:

• Announcing the priority to “defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work”
• Removing the agency’s “pronoun app”
• Ending the use of the “X” gender marker and “Mx.” prefix for the EEOC charge intake process
• Removal of materials promoting “gender ideology” on the EEOC’s internal and external websites and documents
• Launching inquiries and investigations of some law firms’ diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs for discrimination in their DEI programs and initiatives

Based on these policy shifts, employers can anticipate increased EEOC scrutiny of, and potentially commence litigation over, alleged illegal DEI policies in the workplace. Indeed, in response to Trump’s Executive Order 14173, the EEOC and the Department of Justice (DOJ) released guidance clarifying their view on DEI-related discrimination under Title VII. The guidance explained that DEI practices may be unlawful under Title VII if they involve the following:

Disparate Treatment

• Taking any employment action (e.g., hiring, firing, promotion, demotion, compensation, and fringe benefits) motivated by any protected characteristic, such as race or gender, explaining that Title VII’s protections apply equally to all races and genders, not just “minority groups” or “historically underrepresented groups” and clarifying that the EEOC does not require a higher showing of proof for so-called “reverse” discrimination claims
• Using quotas or otherwise “balancing” a workforce by protected characteristics
• Excluding employees from mentoring or other sponsorship programs based on a protected characteristic
• Excluding applicants from internships based on a protected characteristic
• Excluding applicants from interviews based on a protected characteristic

Limiting, Segregating, and Classifying

• Limiting membership in workplace groups, such as employee resource groups or other employee affinity groups, to certain protected groups
• Separating employees into groups based on a protected characteristic when administering DEI or other trainings

Harassment

• Creating a hostile work environment through DEI-related trainings that are discriminatory in content, application, or context—which can be possible depending on the facts

Retaliation

• Retaliating against an employee who provides a fact-specific basis for their belief that a DEI training violates Title VII

While the guidance is not legally binding, it provides insight into what programs the EEOC and DOJ consider “illegal DEI” in the workplace.

The EEOC may also reevaluate pregnancy and childbirth accommodations. Lucas previously voted against the final EEOC rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) because, in her view, “the rule fundamentally errs in conflating pregnancy and childbirth accommodation with accommodation of the female sex, that is, female biology and reproduction.” In a currently pending case challenging the PWFA’s final regulations, the EEOC filed a motion stating, “[t]he Acting Chair has indicated that she intends for the Commission to reconsider portions of the regulation at issue.”

Finally, like the NLRB, the EEOC is currently without a quorum and cannot engage in formal action, but EEOC field offices throughout the country will continue to investigate charges of discrimination—both existing charges and new filings—and their investigative efforts will be motivated in large part by the EEOC’s new guidance and policy priorities.

What’s Next

These changes to the EEOC and NLRB are part of Trump’s broader reshaping of the federal government’s approach to DEI and labor issues, which has seen mixed results so far and will likely continue to be litigated. For example, the Trump administration convinced the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to lift a preliminary injunction blocking key provisions of DEI-related executive orders applicable to federal contractors. But the administration could not stop the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois from temporarily barring the U.S. Department of Labor from enforcing an executive order provision that requires grant recipients certify their DEI programs do not violate applicable federal anti-discrimination laws.

Employers should carefully review their DEI policies, practices, and initiatives, and evaluate what if, any changes, may be necessary to bring them into compliance with current guidance and applicable law.