Compliance Stuff

California employers are caught between two legal systems that are moving in opposite directions.   The Trump administration has reshaped U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforcement priorities, dialing back protections for transgender employees; revoking guidance on harassment; and asserting that diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives may violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act . California has moved in the opposite direction over the past several years, codifying and actively enforcing protections under the Fair Employment and Housing Act and related regulations that expressly guarantee transgender employees the right to access restrooms and other facilities consistent with their gender identity and the right to be addressed by names and pronouns corresponding to their gender identity or expression.  Title VII sets a floor, not a ceiling. So, California employers should remain diligent to meet the requirements of state and federal law, even...

On March 19, 2026, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) launched a  new website  for its “Center for Faith.” According to the DOL, the website “contains resources for Americans who may have faced religious discrimination in the workplace , as well as information for faith organizations on potential grant opportunities and retirement plans.” The Trump administration has highlighted curbing religious bias in the workplace as one of its priorities. 0:00 3:41 Quick Hits The DOL’s new website for the Center for Faith includes resources on preventing workplace religious discrimination and how faith organizations can access federal grants. The website is part of the Trump administration’s focus on addressing religious bias in the workplace. The DOL established the Center for Faith in response to an  executive order  in 2025. The Center for Faith engages with faith-based organizations to defend religious liberties, combat religious bias, and maximize their participation in gra...

Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to move at a pace that few regulatory frameworks can match. This week alone underscored just how deeply AI is permeating every corner of the business world—from financial services, health care, and data centers to marketing technologies, web analytics, and core infrastructure. On December 11, President Trump issued a sweeping Executive Order aimed at curbing the growing patchwork of state AI laws and signaling a strong federal push toward uniformity, global competitiveness, and innovation-first AI policy. The Order sets the stage for significant legal, political, and constitutional debate, particularly around state enforcement authority, algorithmic accountability, and the future of consumer protections. At the same time, states and regulators are not standing still. Florida's proposed AI consumer protections, California's continued expansion of privacy enforcement under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), and aggressive litig...

On December 11, 2025, President Trump  signed an executive order   purporting to limit the ability of states to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) . The order’s stated purpose is to ensure that American AI companies are “free to innovate without cumbersome regulation” and to “remove barriers to American AI leadership.” The order cites the proliferation of AI legislative proposals in state legislatures as undermining that goal (although it bears note that few if any of these proposals have or are likely to become law). The order specifically cites as problematic a recently enacted California state law, which it claims requires “complex and burdensome disclosure… based on the purely speculative suspicion that AI might ‘pose significant catastrophic risk.’” It further references Colorado state law regarding algorithmic discrimination, claiming that that law “may even force AI models to embed DEI in their programming.” The order goes on to state that the administrat...