On January 22, 2026, the commissioners of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted 2-1 to rescind the EEOC’s 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, which as of the posting of this blog entry had already been taken down from the EEOC’s website. The EEOC gave no public opportunity for comment on the decision prior to its vote.
The EEOC’s move represents its latest shift in trying to expedite rescission of the enforcement guidance. As previously discussed in this blog, the EEOC had previously sought authorization from the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), under the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Executive Office of the President. Before the OIRA process was completed, the EEOC shifted tactics and decided to simply vote to rescind the enforcement guidance directly, without posting a final rule in the Federal Register. The EEOC also apparently cancelled its approval request to OIRA, which has been taken down from the OIRA webpage as of the posting of this blog.
The revisions also appear to be part of the Administration’s larger push against protections for gender identity and sexual orientation protections under federal discrimination law, as previously analyzed in this blog. Ultimately, however, the EEOC does not get the final say on the precise scope of harassment protections under Title VII; as the Texas court noted in its opinion, the “EEOC is only authorized to issue procedural rules implementing Title VII as written and interpreted by the Supreme Court,” and just last term the Supreme Court reaffirmed that Title VII covers sexual orientation discrimination claims in a case (Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Services ) involving promotion and demotion issues.
While the rescission decision may signal changes in precedential decisions from the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations, courts do not follow precedent from the EEOC’s federal sector process. The enforcement guidance had relied upon a number of statutory citations and court precedents as the basis for its analysis; those statutes and precedents remain unchanged by the EEOC’s rescission decision. In the EEOC’s press release, EEOC Chair Lucas stated that the rescission “does not give employers license to engage in unlawful harassment, […] Federal employment laws against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, and Supreme Court precedent interpreting those laws, remain firmly in place.”
If you are a federal employee suffering discriminatory harassment and wish to discuss your rights under the law, consider contacting Gilbert Employment Law. P.C. to request an initial consultation.