A Trump administration official described Samuels and Burrows as “far-left appointees with radical records of upending longstanding labor law, and they have no place as senior appointees in the Trump administration, which was given a mandate by the American people to undo the radical policies they created”.
The order appeared to fly in the face of the legal precedent governing her appointment to the commission, but Samuels also sees her firing as part of a greater strategy to create a Republican majority on the five-member commission that will roll back protections for transgender employees in particular, and retaliate more generally against businesses that attempt to address inequity in their workforce.
The president has ordered the axing of the leaders of the US Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and 18 independent federal agency watchdogs, allowed Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency” to attempt to entice millions of federal employees into quitting their jobs and tried to pause all government loans and grants.
US equality chief fired by Trump condemns ‘demonization of the term DEI’ Jocelyn Samuels says her dismissal from EEOC is part of greater strategy to target inequity and roll back rights for trans employees.
Seven days after Donald Trump was inaugurated, Jocelyn Samuels received a message from the White House saying that the president – who had first appointed her as a commissioner to the US government agency tasked with fighting workplace discrimination – now wanted her gone.
