Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, EEOC NEWS—Commission will consider rescission of enforcement guidance on workplace harassment, (Jan 15, 2026)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

The meeting, open to the public, will be held on Thursday, January 22, 2026.

According to a Sunshine Act notice going into tomorrow’s Federal Register, the EEOC will hold a meeting on Thursday, January 22, 2026, at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, to consider three matters: (1) rescission of Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace; (2) resolution concerning the Commission’s authority to commence or intervene in litigation; and (3) obligation of funds requiring Commission approval.

History of the guidance. The Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace was approved by the Commission on April 29, 2024. At the time, now-EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas voted against it. In May 2025, Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas declared unlawful and vacated certain portions of the document, contending that “Title VII remains rooted in a biological understanding of sex” and “does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences of men and women.”

As a result of that conclusion, the federal court judge found that the EEOC’s 2024 guidance contravened Title VII by expanding the definition of “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity and by requiring employers to accommodate an employee’s dress, bathroom, or pronoun requests. Accordingly, the judge vacated the gender-identity related portions of the guidance and the EEOC followed up by updating the guidance on its website to add labels and shade those portions held unlawful and vacated, while noting that “[a]ny modification must be approved by a majority vote of the Commission.”

No surprise. Prior to the court decision and the announcement of the upcoming meeting, then-Acting EEOC Chair Andrea R. Lucas on multiple occasions made clear that the guidance was in her crosshairs. Upon her appointment, she stated, “Consistent with the President’s Executive Orders and priorities, my priorities will include... defending the biological and binary reality of sex and related rights, including women’s rights to single sex spaces at work....”

One week after that, the EEOC released an announcement entitled “Removing Gender Ideology and Restoring the EEOC’s Role of Protecting Women in the Workplace,” within which Lucas’s plan to “return” the agency “to its mission of protecting women from sexual harassment and sex-based discrimination in the workplace by rolling back the Biden administration’s gender identity agenda” was outlined, including a variety of related actions such as removing the agency’s “pronouns app,” removing materials “promoting gender ideology” from the EEOC’s internal and external websites and documents, and making related changes to forms and materials. The announcement noted, however, that “[b]ased on her existing authority, the Acting Chair cannot unilaterally remove or modify certain “gender identity”-related documents subject to the President’s directives in the executive order” because a majority vote is required for the Commission to act on issuing certain documents.

With the confirmation of Brittany Bull Panuccio in October, however, the EEOC now has a quorum.

The meeting will be held at the Jacqueline A. Berrien Training Center, 131 M Street, NE, Washington, D.C., and it will also be held as a listen-only audio dial-in by telephone. The public may attend in person or connect to the audio-only dial-in by following the instructions that will be posted on www.eeoc.gov at least 24 hours before the meeting.

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