By Deryn Sumner, February 15, 2017
As FELTG has kept you all apprised, the MSPB currently lacks a quorum, which means that it can’t actually issue any decisions on pending petitions for review. Luckily the halls of the EEOC are not so empty. The President appointed EEOC Commissioner Victoria A. Lipnic to serve as the Acting Chair of the EEOC on January 25, 2017. Chair Lipnic has been a Commissioner with the EEOC since 2010 and is serving her second term which ends on July 1, 2020.
Prior to joining the Commission, Chair Lipnic worked as the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards, as well as a committee staffer for the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Education and the Workforce. She previously worked for the Washington, D.C. law office of Seyfarth Shaw LLP, as well as in-house counsel working on U.S. Postal Service cases.
The other currently-appointed Commissioners include Chai Feldblum, who has served as a Commissioner since 2010, Jenny Yang, who served as the Chair of the EEOC from September 1, 2014 through January 22, 2017, and Charlotte Burrows, who has been a Commissioner since December 3, 2014. There is one vacancy on the Commission, and no one is currently serving as the General Counsel.
Presidents appoint the commissioners, who must be confirmed by the Senate to serve. No more than three commissioners can be members of the same political party. Chair Lipnic, unsurprisingly, served as a Republican Commissioner prior to her appointment as the Chair.
Notably, Chair Lipnic served as co-chair of the Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workforce, which I talked about a few months ago, along with Commissioner Feldblum. According to a few pieces I read about her appointment, for which I won’t provide links, lest I be caught unaware perpetuating “fake news,” Chair Lipnic is expected to focus on age discrimination claims, equal pay act claims, and ways by which employers can create more jobs. [email protected]
