Compliance Stuff

Easiest to-do list ever! As I reported recently , the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has rescinded a detailed harassment guidance document issued during the Biden Administration. As a result, many employers are probably wondering what exactly they can and cannot do, as well as what they should and shouldn’t do. I  speculated  about this in early January. Now that the rescission is official, here is my 2026 harassment to-do list for employers. I hope it helps. No. 1: If you have a good harassment policy, don’t change a thing.  Well, maybe one or two things, discussed below. But don't believe the hype. The EEOC's action does not mean that we're in a harassment free-for-all. Don't delete the parts of your policy that prohibit discrimination or harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity. You should keep those. The U.S. Supreme Court  ruled in 2020  that discrimination (and, presumably, harassment) based on sexual orientation or gender i...

On January 21, the day after President Trump designated Andrea Lucas as Acting Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Commission issued a press release describing Ms. Lucas’s priorities as including the following: Rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination ; protecting American workers from anti-American national origin discrimination; defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single sex spaces at work; protecting workers from religious bias and harassment, including antisemitism; and remedying other areas of recent under-enforcement. Implementing these priorities was stymied for most of 2025 due to the absence of a quorum at the five-person Commission. But on October 7, the Senate confirmed Republican Brittany Panuccio as the third EEOC Commissioner. Yahtzee! That makes a quorum. And now President Trump has removed the “Acting” designation and named Ms. Lucas as Chair of the EEOC . Double Y...

A former substitute teacher in a Maryland school district has appealed a lower court’s decision to dismiss her First Amendment free exercise and free speech claims and its denial of her motion for preliminary injunction to continue teaching in classrooms where there are no transgender students.  The Fourth Circuit will hear oral arguments on Thursday, October 23. Kimberly Polk filed a complaint in May 2024 alleging the Montgomery County Public School System, Board of Education, and school officials violated her right to free speech, free exercise of religion, and Title VII, when it denied her request for a religious accommodation to be exempted from complying with the school district’s policy that requires staff members to address students by their identified name and pronoun, and to try to maintain the confidentiality of a student's transgender status. The district court rejected Polk’s First Amendment free exercise claim on the grounds that she failed to show the policy was not r...

HR compliance never stands still, and the past few weeks have brought several notable updates. From new federal guidance on DEI programs to clarifications on paid sick leave calculations and evolving standards around religious accommodations, employers have plenty to keep on their radar. DOJ Offers New Direction on DEI The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) recently issued a memorandum directed at federal agencies and federal-funding recipients, explaining how DEI programs must align with federal anti-discrimination laws . Although this guidance primarily is aimed at organizations that receive federal dollars, even private-sector employers without federal contracts should pay attention. Of course, the DOJ’s guidance after heightened federal scrutiny of DEI efforts. President Trump’s early Executive Orders labeled certain DEI programs “unlawful,” and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) attempted to provide clarity earlier this year. Now, the DOJ has reinforced those bounda...

Two years ago, the long dormant duty to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs and practices was awakened by the U.S. Supreme Court in  Groff v. Dejoy . Gone were the days when an employer could justify the denial of a religious accommodation by showing that it would have had more than a  de minimis  impact on the business . Many religious organizations (rightfully) lamented that this resulted in the routine denial of most accommodation requests. Groff  eviscerated that standard. According to the Supreme Court, the denial of a religious accommodation requires proof that it would have caused “substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of [the employer’s] particular business .” As the Supreme Court often does, it provided few details about the meaning of that requirement . Leaving them instead to be developed by the lower federal courts, on a case-by-case basis. Now, with two years of hindsight, that development is beginning to take shape. The good news: ...

At a Glance The Second Circuit clarifies an employee’s burden is minimal, but not non-existent, to establish the employee held a sincere religious belief in conflict with an employer’s policy. The EEOC provides a framework for employers in determining whether a proposed accommodation is “reasonable” and what amounts to an undue hardship. Since vaccines became available in response to COVID-19, courts have dealt with an onslaught of litigation involving religious accommodation in the workplace. Most recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit weighed in on when an employee’s accommodation request to be exempt from a vaccination requirement amounts to a sincerely held religious belief under Title VII. The case is  Gardner-Alfred v. Federal Reserve Bank of New York , 143 F.4th 51 (2d Cir. 2025).  The EEOC also recently weighed in with opinions that emphasize that an employer must face a significant hardship before it can show that the religious accommodation reque...