NEW YORK — The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking to represent two restaurant workers in a gender identity discrimination lawsuit after a U.S. agency that enforces civil rights laws filed to drop the case in response to President Donald Trump’s recent executive order targeting transgender people.
The lawsuit against a Culver’s restaurant in Clarkston, Michigan, is one of seven cases involving gender identity discrimination the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed to dismiss. The EEOC has argued in court filings that pursuing the lawsuits conflicts with Trump’s executive order, which declared that the government would only recognize the female and male sexes and ordered federal agencies to take steps to comply.
The EEOC sought to dismiss the lawsuit against Culver’s on Monday just four months after filed it following a yearslong investigation. EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas declined to comment on the seven cases the agency is seeking to drop, but in a statement to The Associated Press, she said the EEOC, as an agency of the executive branch, will “robustly will comply with the President’s executive orders.”
The original lawsuit alleges that Culver’s fired a transgender man, Asher Lucas, and two female employees, Regina Zaviski and Savannah Nurme-Robinson, after they repeatedly complained to managers that another employee had been harassing and misgendering Lucas. The lawsuit says that managers warned the employee about her behavior but when Lucas, Zaviski and Nurme-Robinson complained that the harassment did not stop, all three were fired.
The ACLU filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Zaviski and Nurme-Robinson on Thursday while Lucas had previously decided to pursue the lawsuit on his own.
“If this administration does not want to protect the rights of transgender people and their allies, we want them to know that we will,” said Syeda Davidson, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Michigan.
An attorney representing Culver’s in the lawsuit did not immediately return an email seeking comment. In court filings, the defendants have denied allegations of discrimination.
Lucas had already filed a motion to intervene — or pursue his own lawsuit — in November out of fear that the EEOC would no longer advocate on his behalf after Trump won the presidential election, according his attorney, Angela Mannarino.
Lucas, 21, told The AP that he has kept pursuing his case over the years because he wants to stand up for transgender people and make sure they don’t go through what he did.
“I’m glad to be the person who can be able to do that,” he said.
The EEOC’s decisions to abandon the seven lawsuits signaled a major departure from its prior interpretation of civil rights law.
Last year, the EEOC updated its guidance to specify that deliberately using the wrong pronouns for an employee, or refusing them access to bathrooms corresponding with their gender identity, constituted a form of harassment. That followed a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that gay, lesbian and transgender people are protected from employment discrimination.
Nearly all workplace discrimination charges must pass through the EEOC at least initially. After a lengthy process, workers can seek the right pursue lawsuits on their own from the EEOC but that means they must shoulder the cost of litigation on their own and are deprived of the agency’s investigative resources.
Lucas, the acting chair, announced in a statement that one of her priorities would be “defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights.” Later, she ordered that the EEOC would continue accepting any and all discrimination charges filed by workers, although complaints that “implicate” Trump’s order should be elevated to headquarters for “review.”
In fiscal year 2023, the agency received more than 3,000 charges alleging discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
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