Under Trump, workplace harassment can now go unpunished

In an alarming escalation of the Trump administration’s war on American labor protections, the federal commission responsible for overseeing workplace anti-harassment laws voted 2-1 on Thursday to dramatically undermine enforcement of those laws. Under President Donald Trump, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is being transformed into an anti-democratic weapon that will make millions of workers more vulnerable to harassment in the workplace.

Andrea Lucas, the EEOC’s Trump-appointed chair, has used the specter of “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” to target school boards, universities and law firms. The commission’s basic job has been to protect workers from discrimination, harassment and firing based on their race, age, disability status, sex and other protected characteristics. She has managed to defang the internal oversight authority of the other EEOC commissioners and erase anti-harassment guidance protecting transgender workers. 

Now, with the successful vote against anti-harassment guidance, Lucas and the EEOC have gone a step further and revoked the commission’s entire existing guidelines on what counts as workplace harassment and how to remedy it. This will make millions of workers much more vulnerable to harassment in the workplace.

The EEOC received over 88,000 discrimination charges in 2024, and approximately one in three were filed for harassment. The commission’s guidance on harassment was already watered down in 2025 when entire sections related to sexual orientation and gender identity were suddenly removed. This vote will make things even worse by revoking the commission’s entire guidelines on preventing and addressing workplace harassment for all protected groups — including race-based harassment, age, disability, sex and more. 

Beyond the devastating personal impacts of workplace harassment, it can also cause lasting economic harm to employees by stunting their life-time earnings, undermining their upward mobility and even prompting them to change careers entirely.

Employers have reason to be alarmed too — low morale and voluntary employee turnover is costly to businesses to the tune of an estimated $1 trillion per year. One study from 2007 showed the U.S. losing $64 billion each year due solely to workplace unfairness, and if adjusted to today’s dollars, that number could equal $123 billion per year — nearly 300 times the EEOC’s annual budget.

Unfortunately, workplace harassment is pervasive and chronically underreported. According to survey data, only about one-quarter of female employees report experiencing sexual harassment when asked directly. Notably, if given specific examples of scenarios that equate to sexual harassment, that number rises to 60%. The process of filing a formal report can be daunting, and many folks opt to leave their jobs rather than endure a self-initiated legal battle. Around one in seven women and one in 17 men will switch positions within a company or quit their job due to sexual harassment.

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One vulnerable group of American workers is already feeling the loss of this guidance and the desertion of their government enforcement agency. Last year, the EEOC abandoned all its pending workplace harassment and discrimination cases brought by transgender people and now essentially refuses to process any new charges that cite discrimination on the basis of gender identity. This violates existing federal law. In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that sexual orientation and gender identity are included in the protections against sex-based discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. 

These unprecedented changes are even more troubling knowing that workplace discrimination and harassment is a major problem for LGBTQI+ people. A national 2024 Center for American Progress survey found that one in three LGBTQI+ Americans experienced verbal harassment — including offensive comments, slurs and jokes — in their place of work. The survey also found that 40% of LGBTQI+ adults made career choices driven by fear of discrimination.  

Thanks to Lucas, transgender Americans can’t trust that the EEOC will do its job to enforce their right to a harassment-free workplace like everyone else. The EEOC is also making it more difficult for state employment commissions to pursue these cases. If someone experiences discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation, without the EEOC on their side, their only recourse is to bring a private lawsuit against their employer. But you can typically only do that if the EEOC reviews your charge. Sixteen states don’t have any anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation or gender identity, meaning for LGBTQI+ people living in those states, federal court is their only hope.

Now that Lucas has gotten her way and the EEOC’s anti-harassment guidelines have been revoked, the challenges LGBTQI+ workers are already facing could soon be shared by millions more American workers — people of color, women, disabled workers and others. Employers and our economy at large will also take a huge hit. 

State departments of labor should consider issuing and updating their own anti-harassment policy guidelines and training to preserve what may soon be lost and to re-establish protections for LGBTQI+ workers. Congress should pass the Equality Act, which would add explicit protections for LGBTQI+ people to our country’s civil rights laws. And in the meantime, we should all be raising the alarm, because this affects every American worker.

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