Free Republic

Federal authorities moved Friday to drop a racial discrimination lawsuit against the Sheetz convenience store chain, part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to halt the use of a key tool for enforcing the country’s civil rights laws. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the top federal agency for enforcing workers rights, filed a motion in a Pennsylvania federal court to dismiss the Sheetz lawsuit, citing Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies to deprioritize the use of “disparate impact liability” in civil rights enforcement. Disparate impact liability holds that policies that are neutral on their face can violate...

A federal judge in Texas struck down guidance from a government agency establishing protections against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation. Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Thursday determined that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission exceeded its statutory authority when the agency issued guidance to employers against deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, and barring employees from wearing dress code-compliant clothing according to their gender identity because they may constitute forms of workplace harassment....