NewzNEW YORK (AP) — A labor union and two female prison employees filed a lawsuit Tuesday accusing a U.S. civil rights agency of unlawfully halting their sexual harassment case as part of wider order to indefinitely suspend proceedings in all… The women, Deanna Chelette and Alexzandria Boyd, were joined in their lawsuit by the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing federal workers.It is not clear why the EEOC gave the suspension directive, which the agency had not publicly disclosed, or how many other cases are affected.
The EEOC referred all questions to the Department of Justice, which declined to comment.Under President Donald Trump, the EEOC has drastically overhauled its civil rights enforcement priorities, including prioritizing cases aimed at stamping out diversity and inclusion policies, dropping cases on behalf of transgender workers and abandoning longstanding tools for investigating systemic discrimination. The changes have prompted several lawsuits against EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, who says she is pursuing an “even-handed” and “colorblind” vision of workplace civil rights.But it's not apparent how the order to suspend federal-sector class claims fits into the EEOC's new priorities. In the court filing, attorneys for the plaintiffs said the EEOC had provided “no reasoned explanation for a blanket policy that halts an entire category of discrimination cases.” The lawsuit seeks to have the suspension directive vacated.“Without an explanation, it's hard to infer what the EEOC’s intentions behind this were, but it’s hard to ignore that this is part of a broader campaign at the EEOC to undermine the ability of employees to protect rights that Congress has pr…
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