EEOC Restores Quorum With Lucas as Chair, Setting 2-1 GOP Majority and New Enforcement Priorities

The regained voting power signals a pivot toward religious accommodations, DEI scrutiny, and defense of binary sex definitions.

Overview

Brittany Panuccio was sworn in on October 27, 2025, restoring the EEOC’s three-member voting quorum.
President Trump removed the acting title and named Andrea Lucas as Chair, creating a 2-1 Republican majority with Democrat Kalpana Kotagal as the third commissioner.
With a quorum, only the Commission can issue rules, publish formal guidance, and authorize major pattern-or-practice or systemic litigation.
Lucas has outlined priorities that include rooting out unlawful DEI-motivated discrimination, protecting workers from religious bias and harassment, and defending biological/binary definitions of sex and single-sex spaces.
Following the Supreme Court’s Groff ruling tightening the undue-hardship standard, the EEOC filed 11 religious-bias suits in 2025, and employers are advised to expect more faith-based accommodation claims and closer review of DEI policies.