Senate Confirms Gilbride for Long-Vacant EEOC Top Lawyer Role

Civil rights litigator Karla Gilbride will serve as the EEOC’s new general counsel after the US Senate confirmed her nomination, filling a role that has been empty for more than two years.

Gilbride, approved on a 50-46 vote Tuesday, will lead the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s litigation efforts on behalf of workers accusing their employers of discrimination based on race, sex, age, disability, and other characteristics.

Gilbride’s confirmation comes in the wake of EEOC finalizing a new strategic enforcement plan, which includes a focus on potential bias generated by artificial intelligence-based employment tools. It also addresses diversity, equity and inclusion practices—which have been targeted by conservative groups that say they violate anti-discrimination laws.

The agency also has recently placed an emphasis on combating workplace harassment and pregnancy discrimination.

The general counsel role has remained vacant since President Joe Biden fired Trump’s pick, Sharon Gustafson, in March 2021. Since then, long-time EEOC attorney Gwendolyn Young Reams has served as acting general counsel.

Worker Advocacy

Gilbride is currently of counsel at Sanford Heisler Sharp LLP, a plaintiffs’ class action firm, and is a temporary staff member at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center, a nonprofit legal organization addressing intersectional disability justice. She previously worked for Public Justice, a nonprofit legal advocacy organization.

She has had a number of high-profile wins representing workers, including a win before the US Supreme Court in a case that involved whether a former employee of a Taco Bell franchisee would need to arbitrate her overtime claims.

In another case, she gained a victory against Amazon Inc. when the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit determined that employees can sue to challenge unsafe working conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At Public Justice, Gilbride sued several well-known companies for alleged violations of workers’ arbitration, anti-discrimination, and class-action rights.

She co-directed the organization’s Access to Justice project, which aims to improve accessibility to the civil justice system for incarcerated individuals and their families.

Nomination Path

Gilbride was originally nominated by Biden in June 2022. Though she was voted out of committee, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) blocked efforts to unanimously confirm her on the Senate floor, asking for a full chamber roll call vote.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) was the only Republican to vote to confirm Gilbride Tuesday.

Gilbride was renominated in January, along with Kalpana Kotagal as an EEOC commissioner.

The Senate confirmed Kotagal this past summer, providing the agency’s five-member leadership panel with a Democratic majority and overcoming a previous partisan split.

The Senate’s labor panel advanced Gilbride’s nomination in February.

The EEOC’s democratic majority could reinstate litigation power to the general counsel that was scaled back during the Trump administration.

In 2020, a Republican-controlled agency voted to limit the general counsel’s authority to file discrimination lawsuits without full commissioner approval.