Trump Making Segregation Real Again

[00:00:00]Trump's EEOC could allow for re-segregation of the workplace.

[00:00:04]But first, I want you to remember this woman.

[00:00:08]>> I'm Andrea Lucas, chair of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

[00:00:13]Are you a white male who's experienced discrimination at work based on your race or sex? You may have a claim to recover money under federal civil rights laws.

[00:00:22]Contact the EEOC as soon as possible.

[00:00:25]Time limits are typically strict for filing a claim.

[00:00:28]The EEOC is the federal agency charged with enforcing federal anti-discrimination law against businesses and other private sector employers. The EEOC is committed to identifying, attacking, and eliminating all forms of race and sex discrimination, including against white male applicants and employees.

[00:00:48]Check out eeoc.gov to learn more and read our one-page explainer about DEI-related discrimination.

[00:00:56]>> I remember her.

[00:00:58]When the team first put this story up and informed you what kind of non-truth was being pushed, I critiqued that presentation.

[00:01:11]In front of the window, not very good, reading something, looking shell-shocked.

[00:01:16]Look like a a DEI hostage.

[00:01:20]And what she was saying is utter nonsense.

[00:01:22]Andrea Lucas, Trump-appointed chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, says a decades-old rule encourages employers to discriminate against white men. That's a damn lie.

[00:01:33]Why are they still getting ahead so much faster than everybody else? EEOC voted on Tuesday to rescind a rule dating back to the 1960s that requires large employers to collect and share data on the race and gender of their workforce.

[00:01:47]The move, as of course, part of the Trump administration's broader anti-DEI efforts. It would make it harder for black workers as well as women, other marginalized groups to make claims of workplace discrimination. It's already difficult.

[00:02:04]Due to one vote, party lines, EEOC advanced a proposal to end a 1966 rule requiring all companies with 100 or more employees to report data on the race and gender of their workforce.

[00:02:17]That data that comes from the reporting requirement known as EEO-1 form has been used by both government and individual workers as a tool to prevent, matter, remedy racial or gender discrimination in workplaces.

[00:02:32]The Grio with the reporting EEOC Chairwoman Lucas, a Republican appointed as we said by Trump, argued the data reporting requirement ran afoul of civil rights law and equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment because it encouraged employers to discriminate against workers who are not a protected group.

[00:02:52]In other words, white men. There's a reason they're not a protected group, okay?

[00:03:00]EEOC, which was established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, is responsible for enforcing the landmark law's anti-discrimination statute, Title VII in the workplace.

[00:03:14]Under the Trump administration for the first time since its creation, the EEOC has reversed course on its decades-long mission of enforcing rules intended to protect black, brown, women workers.

[00:03:25]"It appears that it is all to advance a political agenda to re-segregate the American workforce," said Deborah Vagins, senior vice president of advocacy advocacy and programs at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Vagins telling the Grio it's all part of their whitewashing of data across the administration.

[00:03:45]EEOC under Trump has taken other act like eliminating its workplace harassment guidance, rescinding affirmative action guidelines dating back to '79. Bagans who worked as a chief of staff at the EEOC said, "This latest move by the federal agency will only lead to more discrimination.

[00:04:05]Only now it could be happening in the dark.

[00:04:07]No proper oversight. Eliminating data about the demographics of the workforce will not obviously eliminate discrimination. Instead, what it's doing is obscuring the disparities that currently exist, making the discrimination people are facing in the workplace harder to address.

[00:04:23]And they are essentially getting rid of a valuable tool that has helped them since 1966. Target enforcement efforts prioritize their resources, ensure equal opportunity in the workplace. If the EEOC's new rule rescission is implemented, black or brown or female worker experiencing discrimination by an employer including in hiring, will soon have less data to help their cases. If you're in litigation, the data to help bolster cases where the EEOC would be on the side of the plaintiff.

[00:04:56]The data is also meant to help the EEOC in its efforts to root out workforce discrimination in specific industries.

[00:05:03]Whether it be tech, maybe construction.

[00:05:06]Without that data, Bagans who warns the agency will have no visibility into disparities and trends.

[00:05:13]Then ultimately use that as a justification for why they are not supporting black workers in discrimination cases. Nothing to see here.

[00:05:21]She told the Grio, "If you can't measure something, you can't fix it.

[00:05:26]And that's what they want. They don't think fixing discrimination against workers of color and women is a priority. They don't want the data to show it." Yeah, that's all they're doing here.

[00:05:39]Just hide everything, suppress everything. Nothing to see here.

[00:05:44]And for Donald Trump, why is he so obsessed?

[00:05:47]It's as if he is avenging everything he and his father before him had to account to and account for, right?

[00:05:59]He knows a little something about the old EEOC.

[00:06:03]They got them, baby. Got him and his daddy because they were doing discriminatory things. And so now it's pretty clear what he wants to do to avenge that.