Andrea Lucas' Right-Hand Man Named as New EEOC Acting General Counsel, Signaling Aligned Political Leadership at the EEOC

Seyfarth Synopsis: On February 4, 2025, the EEOC announced that President Trump has named Andrew Rogers as its new Acting General Counsel. In that role, Rogers will be responsible for conducting EEOC litigation and managing the EEOC’s Regional Attorneys. Rogers previously held political roles at the agency, working directly with now Acting Chair Andrea Lucas, and his appointment suggests further efforts by the Trump administration to align the EEOC’s litigation program with the Trump administration's focus on “gender ideology” issues and other political priorities.

Rogers’ appointment follows a tumultuous two weeks at the EEOC. On January 21, 2025, President Trump named Andrea Lucas, the Commission’s sole Republican, as Acting Chair of the EEOC.[1] Days later, President Trump fired sitting EEOC Commissioners Charlotte Burrows and Jocelyn Samuels, as well as EEOC General Counsel Karla Gilbride, all Democratic appointees whose terms have not yet expired.[2]

After Gilbride's removal, pursuant to the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, Deputy General Counsel Chris Lage, a career official, became the EEOC’s Acting General Counsel. While official word has yet to be released, Lage is presumed to have been fired by President Trump to make way for Rogers’ appointment.[3]

There are stark contrasts between Lage and Rogers. Lage began his EEOC career in the 1990’s as an EEOC trial attorney, and most recently spent almost two decades at EEOC headquarters as part of the career staff that manages the EEOC’s litigation program. In this role, he earned widespread respect among the Regional Attorneys and other Office of General Counsel attorneys responsible for conducting EEOC litigation.

Rogers, by contrast, has been with the EEOC since October 2020, when he joined as Chief Counsel to Commissioner Lucas. In that political role, his responsibilities included interacting with the Regional Attorneys on behalf of then-Commissioner Lucas. More recently, Rogers briefly served as Lucas’ Chief of Staff after she was named as Acting Chair, becoming her most-senior staff advisor before being named as Acting General Counsel.

The White House's decision to install Acting Chair Lucas’ right-hand man as the EEOC’s Acting General Counsel suggests that Lucas’ recent actions (more on that below) may have the tacit approval of senior Trump administration officials. The close working relationship that Acting Chair Lucas and Acting General Counsel Rogers have had over the past four years also suggests that the two will speak with one voice regarding their pursuit of President Trump’s agenda.

For example, just last week, Acting Chair Lucas issued a press release on “Removing Gender Ideology and Restoring the EEOC’s Role of Protecting Women in the Workplace.”^[4] Her statement affirmed multiple aspects of the Trump administration’s agenda, including an intent “to defend the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work,” remove pronoun identification from employee name displays on electronic systems; ending the use of gender neutral markers on intake and charge forms; and removing from the EEOC’s website “materials promoting gender ideology.” On January 30, 2025, a publication reported that the EEOC has stopped the investigation of charges involving transgender charging parties. On January 31, 2025, an EEOC spokesman made subsequent statements to the media confirming that Acting Chair Lucas had directed that certain charges “be elevated for review at EEOC headquarters,” signaling that Acting Chair Lucas has started creating an administrative pathway to change the direction of the EEOC's investigations in this area. Rogers was Lucas’ most-senior staff advisor at the time of these actions, so we assume him to be well-aligned with her positions.

President Trump's installation of Rogers as the EEOC’s Acting General Counsel suggests that over the short term, there will likely be close alignment among the EEOC’s political leadership and ongoing attempts to align the EEOC’s litigation program with the Trump administration’s political priorities. However, with respect to the EEOC’s litigation program, there remain significant limitations on what Rogers may be able to accomplish in the short term.

Title VII provides that the General Counsel, and not the Chair or the Commission, is responsible for the “conduct” of litigation. Thus, while the Acting Chair is able to wield her power as the administrative head of the agency to assert influence over the Commission’s charge-intake and investigation processes, conducting EEOC-initiated litigation is within the exclusive domain of the EEOC’s General Counsel (or Acting General Counsel). Notably, the Regional Attorneys who directly conduct and develop litigation in the EEOC’s District Offices all report to the General Counsel and not the Chair (or Acting Chair).

Employers also should remember that career staff at the EEOC continue to process charges, conduct investigations, and litigate cases under existing procedures, at least for now. As we’ve recently detailed, the removal of Commissioners Burrows and Samuels leaves the EEOC without a quorum. While the Acting General Counsel retains delegated authority to file routine cases, the Commission's delegation framework prohibits filing systemic discrimination cases, cases requiring major expenditure of resources, or cases “that implicate areas of the law that are not settled and cases that are likely to generate public controversy”. This last limitation may significantly constrain Rogers' ability to initiate litigation aligned with President Trump's ”gender ideology" agenda, at least until the EEOC regains its quorum.

Seyfarth will continue to monitor these developments and provide updates as developments occur. For more information on how these changes may affect your workplace policies and compliance obligations, please contact any of the authors, a member of Seyfarth’s People Analytics team, or your Seyfarth attorney. For more information about the EEOC, its composition and litigation activity, please see Seyfarth Shaw’s EEOC-Initiated Litigation - 2025 Edition or contact your Seyfarth attorney or the authors of this post.

 

[1] Press Release: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, President Appoints Andrea R. Lucas EEOC Acting Chair  (Jan. 21, 2025), https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/president-appoints-andrea-r-lucas-eeoc-acting-chair 

[2] See Rachel See and Andrew Scroggins, Trump Fires EEOC Commissioners, Testing Constitutional Limits on Presidential Power Over Independent Agencies, Workplace Class Action Blog (Jan. 29, 2025), https://www.workplaceclassaction.com/.  While President Trump’s removal of the EEOC General Counsel followed President Biden’s firing of the EEOC GC at the start of his administration in 2021, President Trump’s firing of sitting EEOC Commissioners is unprecedented.

[3] President Trump's moves at the EEOC this week mirror his recent actions at the National Labor Relations Board. At the NLRB, President Trump first fired Biden-appointed General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, then this past weekend removed career NLRB official Jessica Rutter who stepped into the NLRB Acting General Counsel role, clearing the way on February 3, 2025 for President Trump to name William Cowen as the NLRB’s Acting General Counsel.

[4] Press Release: U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Removing Gender Ideology and Restoring the EEOC’s Role of Protecting Women in the Workplace (Jan. 28, 2025), https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/removing-gender-ideology-and-restoring-eeocs-role-protecting-women-workplace