“You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws,” says the Chairwoman of the U.S. Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC), in a video which has amassed nearly 6 million views on X. ¹

Chairwoman Andrea Lewis told The Washington Post that “the agency will focus on stamping out ‘illegal discrimination’ stemming from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and ‘anti-American bias.’”

The WaPo report was also careful to note that, at the very start of Mr. Trump’s second term, the President dismissed two Democrats from the commission. Another Republican was added in October, giving the panel a GOP majority and quorum to advance a conservative agenda.

The Fox Guarding the Hen House

The upshot of all of this seems rather obvious: EEO was intended to level the playing field for all U.S. citizens, regardless of race, color, creed, sexual identity and so forth. The conservative agenda appears to have weaponized the commission against the very people it was established to protect. “The EEOC also has dismissed cases filed on behalf of transgender workers and stopped processing new gender identity complaints to comply with Trump’s executive order that prohibits agencies from using federal funds to support gender-identity issues.”

Conclusion

To me, this smells a lot like payback. The Trump Administration is perverting the EEOC to defending white individuals alleging they have been harmed by DEI practices.

In my view, nobody wins here. It is my sense that the EEOC was created to support minority job applicants and employees.

Was it fair that I lost out on a position to another candidate so that the company could claim it hired a nonwhite applicant? Of course not.

Was it fair that that person had an ancestor that was considered a white man’s property? No.

Is it fair that I gain a position in favor of a better qualified candidate because I’m white? Also no.

There’s no way to achieve fairness. The truth is, when there are two finalists for a position, one will be offered the position and one won’t. Businesses are not compelled to disclose the reasons for their employment decisions. I’m sure I’ve applied for numerous positions that only announced the opportunity to satisfy some federal requirement, because they had an internal candidate they were going to promote into it regardless.

Do I feel this is a valuable change in direction for the EEOC? No. I don’t, but the status quo probably wasn’t all that fair, either. Do I feel I’ll benefit from this change, as a white male in the workforce? Nope.

As with most things with the GOP of late, there’s always some element of plausible deniability about their agenda. The EEOC can simply say “we’re investigating all claims from everybody,” and — on its face — it can seem that way. And I would owe Ms. a full throated apology if the number of cases was analyzed and found to be essentially even — cases on behalf of majority workers vs cases on behalf of minority workers, that kind of thing.

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¹ Telford, T. (2025, December 30). Why Trump’s EEOC wants to talk to White men about discrimination. The Washington Post.