Labor & Employment Developments Blog

On March 17, 2025, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) Acting Chair, Andrea Lucas, sent letters to 20 large law firms requesting information concerning each firm’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (“DEI”) related employment practices.   These letters follow a March 6 executive order issued by President Trump which directed the EEOC to look at “large, influential, or industry leading law firms” for “compliance with race-based and sex-based non-discrimination laws.”

On January 22, 2025, Ohio Senators Louis W. Blessing (R-Colerain Township) and William P. DeMora (D-Columbus) introduced Senate Bill 11 (“SB 11”), which aims to prohibit certain post-employment agreements in the state of Ohio. If passed, this bipartisan bill would place Ohio among the minority of states with such legislation. As state lawmakers consider this departure from Ohio’s current stance of enforceability of these agreements, there are four key provisions employers should be aware of:

On March 10, 2025, Justice Clarence Thomas issued a dissent following the Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari for Ronald Hittle v. City of Stockton, California, 604 U.S.  ___ (2025), a religious discrimination case involving a fire chief terminated after attending a leadership conference at a church. In his dissent, Thomas, joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch, questioned whether it is time for the Court to revisit the longstanding McDonnell Douglas framework used in employment discrimination cases. 

In his first fifty days in office, President Trump has taken numerous actions to consolidate the power of the Executive Branch. Shortly after taking office, he dismissed heads of multiple Executive Branch agencies and asserted that agency leaders must align with his Administration’s objectives.  While President Trump’s authority to replace many Executive Branch officials is unquestioned, his authority to remove appointees to independent agencies is less clear.

Last week, President Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor, former Oregon Congresswoman Lori Chávez-DeRemer, appeared before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions for her confirmation hearing. Her nomination was something of a surprise as Chávez-DeRemer, the daughter of a lifelong Teamster, was known for taking more union-leaning stances during her short stint in Congress. For example, as a member of the House, Chávez-DeRemer was one of three Republicans to support the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. The PRO Act sought to expand labor protections and weaken “right-to-work” laws, which allow employees to opt-out of participation in or paying dues to unions that represent workers at their place of employment.

Significant attention has been given to President Trump’s actions regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs and policies, but the impact of those actions on private sector employees has not been clear. On his first two days in office, President Trump signed multiple executive orders addressing the use of DEI programs in government. One order, Executive Order 14151: Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, directed executive agencies to terminate all DEI offices, positions, plans, initiatives, or similar programs. Another order, Executive Order 14173: Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, directed all executive departments and agencies to terminate any discriminatory or unlawful preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements. President Trump took this action citing his administration’s position that such policies violate the text and spirit of longstanding federal civil rights laws.

Recent executive orders have caused the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to abandon litigation and guidance on LGBTQ+ protections and other areas that were priorities during the Biden administration

On February 14, 2025, National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) acting General Counsel William B. Cowen rescinded several memoranda issued by the former NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo. The rescinded memoranda include, GC 21-06 and GC 21-07 addressing remedies to be sought; GC 21-08 on the rights of student-athletes under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA); GC 23-02 on electronic monitoring; GC 23-05 on severance agreements; and GC 23-08 and GC 25-01 on non-compete agreements. The rescission of GC 23-5, GC 23-08 and GC 25-01 is significant for employers that use non-compete agreements in their employment or severance agreements.

On November 15, 2024, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas overturned the Department of Labor’s (DOL) final rule which increased the salary threshold for workers to be exempt from overtime requirements.

On Oct. 4, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to hear Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services –a reverse discrimination case from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. The question before the Supreme Court is whether the heightened “background circumstances” rule adopted by the Sixth Circuit for reverse discrimination cases is discriminatory and runs afoul of Title VII. The “background circumstances” rule is an additional requirement imposed by certain circuits for proving discrimination in cases involving members of majority groups – so-called reverse discrimination cases. A plaintiff typically satisfies the “background circumstances” by presenting evidence that a member of the relevant minority group made the employment decision at issue, or with statistical evidence showing a pattern of discrimination by the employer against members of the majority group. Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Youth Servs., 87 F.4th 822, 825 (6th Cir. 2023)