Lawsuit revealed EEOC indefinitely suspended all federal-sector civil-rights class complaints

On July 28, 2026, a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia revealed that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had secretly ordered its administrative judges to indefinitely suspend processing of all federal-sector class discrimination complaints, including those alleging disparate impact. The American Federation of Government Employees and two female federal prison employees, Deanna Chelette and Alexzandria Boyd, brought the suit against the EEOC and Chair Andrea Lucas after the agency froze their certified class complaint alleging severe, ongoing sexual harassment of female corrections officers at the Federal Correctional Complex in Pollock, Louisiana.

According to the lawsuit, the EEOC issued the agencywide suspension order at some point before December 10, 2025, without public announcement or explanation. Administrative Judge Erania Ebron, who had certified the Pollock class complaint in March 2025, notified the parties in December 2025 that the case was paused until further notice and that the pause applied to all class cases in the federal sector, including those alleging disparate impact. The order halted hearings, discovery, and decisions across an unknown number of pending class cases; attorneys for the plaintiffs said they separately represent federal workers in at least five other stalled class complaints, including cases against the FBI and the Department of Defense.

The lawsuit argues the suspension violates EEOC regulations requiring the agency to process federal-sector complaints promptly, and asks a court to vacate the directive. The EEOC declined to explain the suspension, referring questions to the Department of Justice, which also declined to comment. The freeze came amid a broader overhaul of EEOC civil-rights enforcement under Chair Lucas, including deprioritizing systemic-discrimination investigations and dropping cases involving transgender workers.