The Legal Accountability Center has filed a complaint against the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Andrea Lucas, alleging that she has instructed investigators not to look into complaints about anti-LGBTQ+ behavior. The complaint also challenges letters sent by Lucas to law firms requesting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) information.

“The EEOC does not have ⁠the unilateral authority to demand the information sought from these law firms because the EEOC had no pending investigation or charge against these firms,” executive director of the Legal Accountability Center, Michael Teter, writes in the complaint. “These letters ​are nothing more than an effort to intimidate and scare these employers into abandoning their DEI efforts, in violation of Title VII – the very federal law the EEOC is supposed ​to enforce.”

Related

State Department bans trans employees from using the appropriate restrooms at work

Lucas is a Virginia-licensed attorney, and the Legal Accountability Center filed its complaint with the Virginia State Bar, encouraging them to investigate Lucas. If the Bar takes up the investigation and finds Lucas at fault, they can publish a public reprimand or suspend or revoke her law license.

As well as not investigating specific anti-LGBTQ+ complaints, Lucas is also accused of ceasing investigation into “disparate impact” claims (where a policy is discriminatory because it affects a marginalized group more than others, intentionally or not).

Insights for the LGBTQ+ community

Subscribe to our briefing for insights into how politics impacts the LGBTQ+ community and more.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

In the complaint, Teter says that “Chair Lucas has instructed the EEOC not to investigate discrimination that alleges disparate impact. In addition, Chair Lucas has instructed investigators at the EEOC not to bring charges alleging discrimination against LGBTQ people unless it directly relates to firing, hiring, and promotions.” All of that, despite “a clear statutory requirement for the EEOC to enforce Title VII,” and supported by a leaked memo.

Instead of the EEOC investigating these disparate-impact cases, the memo reportedly states that claimants would receive a “Right to Sue” notice, pushing them to take the case to court themselves. That requires individuals to pay their own legal fees in a case that can be hard to win without the EEOC’s support and the benefit of an investigation by the commission.

The Legal Accountability Center also takes issue with the letters Lucas sent in March to 20 major law firms. The letters, which requested information about the firms’ DEI employment practices, were on official EEOC letterhead and signed by Lucas as chair. Teter says those letters “intimated that the firms’ DEI practices violated Title VII and stated Chair Lucas was concerned that the firms’ ‘diversity and inclusion’ or other employment programs, policies and practices may entail unlawful disparate treatment.”

Teter argues that these letters are intended to intimidate these law firms into dismantling their DEI programs and stopping support for marginalized communities. He notes that “If Chair Lucas had a sufficient basis in evidence to believe that any of the recipients of her letters had engaged in discrimination in violation of Title VII, she would have the authority to file a Commissioner charge, signed under penalty of perjury, to begin an investigation.”

The complaint continues, “But instead of following Title VII’s bedrock confidentiality provisions, Chair Lucas attempted to bypass Title VII’s requirements and demand documents through public pressure and intimidation (without any authority to do so) and before any findings of discrimination that would result in a court proceeding.”

Teter, speaking with Reuters, said that he wants the Bar to issue a public reprimand of Lucas. While it would not affect her role at the EEOC (removing her would only lead to Trump replacing her with someone who would do the same), he suggests it could encourage companies to avoid compliance. “Those who receive her letters are not going to feel the same kind of need ​to respond if she has been sanctioned,” Teter said. “I think that they will have a greater appetite for challenging her or disregarding her letters, for which she had ​no authority to send.”

The letters that Lucas sent to law firms in March echo those sent to several Fortune 500 companies in February, which pushed for compliance with Lucas’ interpretation of Title VII and her anti-DEI policies.

Lucas was nominated to the EEOC by Trump in 2020 and was re-nominated in March of 2025. She was designated chair of the EEOC in November 2025. At that time, Lucas gave an interview to Reuters in which she said, “My goal is to shift to a conservative view of civil rights.”

Under Lucas’ tenure, the EEOC also reached a decision in February over a case where a transgender person had filed a complaint about being denied access to appropriate restrooms in a federal building. The commission declared that Title VII permits a federal agency employer to maintain single-sex bathrooms and similar intimate spaces,” and “permits a federal agency employer to exclude employees, including trans-identifying employees, from opposite-sex facilities.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.