ACLU moves to take up gender identity lawsuit that EEOC is abandoning
following Trump's order
[March 01, 2025]
By ALEXANDRA OLSON and CLAIRE SAVAGE
NEW YORK (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking to
represent two restaurant workers in a gender identity discrimination
lawsuit after a U.S. agency that enforces civil rights laws filed to
drop the case in response to President Donald Trump's recent executive
order targeting transgender people.
The lawsuit against a Culver’s restaurant in Clarkston, Michigan, is one
of seven cases involving gender identity discrimination the Equal
Employment Opportunity Commission has filed to dismiss. The EEOC has
argued in court filings that pursuing the lawsuits conflicts with
Trump's executive order, which declared that the government would only
recognize the female and male sexes and ordered federal agencies to take
steps to comply.
The EEOC sought to dismiss the lawsuit against Culver's on Monday just
four months after filed it following a yearslong investigation. EEOC
Acting Chair Andrea Lucas declined to comment on the seven cases the
agency is seeking to drop, but in a statement to The Associated Press,
she said the EEOC, as an agency of the executive branch, will “robustly
will comply with the President’s executive orders.”
The original lawsuit alleges that Culver's fired a transgender man,
Asher Lucas, and two female employees, Regina Zaviski and Savannah Nurme-Robinson,
after they repeatedly complained to managers that another employee had
been harassing and misgendering Lucas. The lawsuit says that managers
warned the employee about her behavior but when Lucas, Zaviski and Nurme-Robinson
complained that the harassment did not stop, all three were fired.
The ACLU filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Zaviski and Nurme-Robinson
on Thursday while Lucas had previously decided to pursue the lawsuit on
his own.
“If this administration does not want to protect the rights of
transgender people and their allies, we want them to know that we will,”
said Syeda Davidson, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Michigan.
An attorney representing Culver's in the lawsuit did not immediately
return an email seeking comment. In court filings, the defendants have
denied allegations of discrimination.
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Lucas had already filed a motion to intervene — or pursue his own
lawsuit — in November out of fear that the EEOC would no longer
advocate on his behalf after Trump won the presidential election,
according his attorney, Angela Mannarino.
Lucas, 21, told The AP that he has kept pursuing his case over the
years because he wants to stand up for transgender people and make
sure they don't go through what he did.
“I’m glad to be the person who can be able to do that,” he said.
The EEOC's decisions to abandon the seven lawsuits signaled a major
departure from its prior interpretation of civil rights law.
Last year, the EEOC updated its guidance to specify that
deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, or refusing
them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity,
constituted a form of harassment. That followed a 2020 Supreme Court
ruling that gay, lesbian and transgender people are protected from
employment discrimination.
Nearly all workplace discrimination charges must pass through the
EEOC at least initially. After a lengthy process, workers can seek
the right pursue lawsuits on their own from the EEOC but that means
they must shoulder the cost of litigation on their own and are
deprived of the agency's investigative resources.
Lucas, the acting chair, announced in a statement that one of her
priorities would be “defending the biological and binary reality of
sex and related rights.” Later, she ordered that the EEOC would
continue accepting any and all discrimination charges filed by
workers, although complaints that “implicate” Trump’s order should
be elevated to headquarters for “review.”
In fiscal year 2023, the agency received more than 3,000 charges
alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender
identity.
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