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10/15/2025

Seyfarth’s Unique EEOC FY’25 Analysis Earns Widespread High-Level Media Coverage; Chris DeGroff and Andy Scroggins Quoted as EEOC Authorities

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Seyfarth’s immediate year-end analysis of the EEOC’s Fiscal Year 2025 received a wide range of high-level press coverage. Christopher DeGroff and Andrew Scroggins, along with Seyfarth’s year-end blog post, were quoted frequently and prominently about the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s “quietest year in a decade.” Published coverage has included:

Still, there is much to be learned from the EEOC's activity patterns, since the private bar often follows the EEOC's lead on litigation strategy, the Seyfarth lawyers said. "Employers should view these trends not merely as a question of whether the EEOC will noisily target certain areas, but the vulnerabilities to private litigation that follow increased attention and focus on issues highlighted by the EEOC," the Seyfarth report said.

It's too soon to tell what Fiscal Year 2026 will bring to the EEOC under leaders picked by Trump, said DeGroff. But it's important to note that the commission lacks a quorum, which limits the type of cases it can bring, DeGroff said. 

DeGroff: "It is possible, if not probable, that there are a number of cases that are waiting in the wings for that quorum to be established, and there could be a flurry of cases based on that quorum. The sorts of cases that require a quorum are the larger cases, the systemic cases, the cases that require a significant expenditure of EEOC resources."

 Scroggins: "Another category that requires approval by a quorum of the commissioners are cases that would challenge the precedent in the courts where the case is being filed. And as we've seen with the new administration, they've come in with their own priorities, and so to the extent that they are looking to file cases that might change federal court precedent, they need to wait for a quorum of commissioners in order to bring that type of litigation."

DeGroff: "Some of Chair Lucas' views on what should be covered by the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act have some political detractors, but the general concept of cases brought under that theory is supported by both sides of the aisle."

Seyfarth Shaw partner Christopher DeGroff said that pregnancy discrimination has been a priority for acting EEOC chair Andrea Lucas since she joined the commission, and that the agency's enforcement approach in fiscal 2025 sent an unambiguous message to employers and workers alike that it is on the lookout for pregnancy-related bias in the workplace.

"There was absolutely no equivocation when she was [confirmed in 2020] and frankly even before that, that this was an important topic for her, and she was going to drive that home with the EEOC's litigation agenda," DeGroff said, adding that combating pregnancy bias is also a politically bipartisan issue.

"The particular religious discrimination cases that we saw filed are relatively unremarkable," Scroggins said. "There are a few that relate to COVID-19 and vaccine policies, those would be the most controversial, but there were also, by my count, four cases that related to giving employees time off to observe the Sabbath or to observe religious holidays. Those are consistent with what we've seen from the EEOC in the past."

Part of the EEOC’s drop in litigation filings may be due to the election of President Donald Trump and lack of quorum for much of year, according to Seyfarth partners Christopher DeGroff and Andrew Scroggins.

The Trump administration came in with “directives that are contrary to what we’ve seen the EEOC operating under in the past,” Scroggins said.

Potential DEI lawsuits are likely “locked and loaded” in the pipeline for when there is a quorum, and the EEOC may be saving resources for those to come in fiscal year 2026, DeGroff said.

DeGroff: “That we didn’t see any breakaway litigation, any district filing a lawsuit that peeled away from what Acting Chair Lucas’s priorities are, to me, that was surprising in itself.”

Scroggins: PWFA was bound to get attention this year as a relatively new enforcement tool, Scroggins said, and one that employers may not have been sufficiently prepared for. Without a quorum to tackle more complicated and potentially feather-ruffling issues, the focus was also low-hanging fruit in that “there’s not really dissent over whether pregnancy discrimination is bad.”

Scroggins: “Long-term care and assisted living facilities have been particularly vulnerable to agency-initiated actions.”

DeGroff on the EEOC targeting the healthcare industry: “a trend that appears to transcend partisan politics and presidential administration.”

Seyfarth blog: “The private plaintiff’s bar often follows in the path cut by the EEOC. Anecdotally, we already see this ‘follow-the-leader’ phenomenon by private litigants in courts around the country.”  Employers should view these trends not merely as a question of whether the EEOC will noisily target certain areas, but the vulnerabilities to private litigation that follow increased attention and focus on issues highlighted by the EEOC.”