On February 26, 2026, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Chair Andrea Lucas sent a letter to the leaders of Fortune 500 companies to ensure that their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs comply with civil rights laws, highlighting the agency’s recent efforts to rein in corporate DEI programs it claims “attack” principles of equal opportunity.
In the letter, Chair Lucas said:
I urge Corporate America to reject identity politics as its solution to society’s ills. The only lawful way to stop discrimination on the basis of race or sex, is to stop discriminating on the basis of race or sex. . . . Protecting workers begins with preventing discrimination. The EEOC is committed to helping businesses comply with the law. Hiring workers based on their merit, excellence, and character—not skin color or sex—is the right thing to do and benefits employers and employees alike.
EEOC Sues Bottler Over Female-Only Networking Event
On February 18, 2026, the EEOC sued Coca-Cola Northeast claiming it held a two-day employer-sponsored trip and networking event at the Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort in Connecticut for women employees only. The EEOC claims the company only invited female employees to the event, excused the female employees who attended the event from their normal work duties on September 10 and 11, 2024, and paid them their normal salary or wages without requiring them to use vacation or other paid time off. Coca-Cola Northeast didn’t invite any male employees to the event.
In the press release, acting EEOC General Counsel Catherine L. Eschbach said:
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has long made the exclusion of one protected class of employees from an employer-sponsored event a violation of the law. Excluding men from an employer-sponsored event is a Title VII violation that the EEOC will act to remedy through litigation when necessary. The EEOC remains committed to ensuring that all employees—men and women alike—enjoy equal access to all aspects of their employment, including participation in employer-sponsored events, regardless of their sex, race, or other protected category.
Federal Employers Allowed to Exclude Trans Employees from Bathrooms
In a decision issued for the federal workforce, the EEOC held that federal employers can lawfully block transgender workers from using bathrooms and changing facilities that align with their gender identity. In an administrative appeal involving civilian Army employees, the EEOC voted 2 to 1 that Title VII allows federal agency employers “to maintain single-sex bathrooms and similar intimate spaces” and permits them to “exclude employees, including trans-identifying employees, from opposite-sex facilities.”
The EEOC majority found that the Department of the Army correctly dismissed an EEO complaint filed by a civilian employee who sought to use the female-designated bathrooms at a Kansas military installation after transitioning because excluding an employee from opposite sex bathroom or similar intimate space doesn’t by itself state a plausible claim for relief under Title VII. The complaint was based on President Trump’s Executive Order 14168, which declared that U.S. policy would not recognize gender identity and instead acknowledge only two “immutable” sexes. The EEOC majority stated that no federal court has yet authoritatively addressed whether Title VII allows workplaces to maintain single-sex bathrooms and intimate spaces or whether the statute mandates that employers allow transgender employees access to bathrooms and locker rooms “otherwise reserved for the opposite sex.”
As the majority Supreme Court opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia explicitly noted, the decision did not purport to address “bathrooms, locker rooms or anything else of the kind.” The EEOC held that the void created by Bostock and lack of “guiding precedent” left the commission with “no choice but to undertake our own interpretation of the statute.” The opinion concluded that women and men have “different polarities,” so they are not similarly situated in this instance and therefore, “to separate men and women in the workplace under these circumstances is not discriminatory under Title VII.”
Federal Court Challenges UPenn’s Position on Jewish Employees
The EEOC filed a subpoena enforcement action against the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) seeking additional information, including contact information, for all of its Jewish employees as part of an investigation into allegations of antisemitism. Based on a recent hearing, the federal district court judge said the issue before him was a narrow one—whether the EEOC’s request for information was relevant to its investigation of alleged antisemitism directed at UPenn’s Jewish employees—and not on the merits of the investigation itself. UPenn has challenged the request as being too expansive and a violation of privacy rights. Based on the hearing, it appears that the federal judge is inclined to enforce the subpoena for UPenn’s Jewish employees’ contact information.
H. Juanita Beecher is an attorney with FortneyScott in Washington, D.C. You can reach her at nbeecher@ fortneyscott.com.