When your career is at stake, you should have a fair chance to challenge the government’s version of what happened.
That protection matters before you ever need an employment lawyer. It matters when you apply for a promotion, request a workplace accommodation, or speak up about discrimination. The agency making those decisions should have to answer for them through a fair process.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is proposing to change how federal employees enforce that protection. Its rewrite would restrict access to independent judge proceedings, impose new filing barriers, and eliminate administrative class complaints.
Southworth PC has submitted a formal opposition letter demanding that the EEOC withdraw the proposed rewrite.
We examined the rules, the Commission’s explanations, its staffing figures, and the legal protections at stake. Our objection is fundamental: the Commission has not justified taking away procedures employees use to challenge the government’s account of what happened.
Click to read our full opposition letter
You can comment, too. The deadline is September 28, 2026.
This is a proposal. It has not changed your current filing deadlines.
The Agency’s Explanation Has to Fit the Evidence
Consider a hypothetical promotion dispute. The agency says it selected the better-qualified candidate.
A lawyer needs to examine that explanation. Did the decision-makers use the same standard for both applicants? Does the reason they give now match the records created when they made the decision? What happens when a witness must answer questions about the difference?
The reason an agency gives should be tested against the evidence. An unanswered question can be the difference between accepting an explanation and uncovering discrimination.
Southworth PC practices federal employment law exclusively. Our firm has represented more than 2,000 federal employees and tried hundreds of cases to decision. I have devoted more than 20,000 hours to this field.
When I examine a proposed rule, I look at who can obtain the evidence, who can question the witnesses, and who controls the decision. Those details determine whether an employee has a real opportunity to prove a case.
The Choice the EEOC Would Take Away
Under the ordinary current process, an employee can request proceedings before an EEOC administrative judge after the investigation. The employee can also request them 180 days after filing the complaint, even if the investigation is unfinished. The judge can oversee evidence gathering and decide the case. Some cases are resolved without a live hearing.
Under the proposal, the route to judge proceedings would begin with an agency decision and an appeal. The Commission would decide whether judge proceedings were necessary or efficient. It could limit the issues, witnesses, or documents examined. The judge ordinarily would make recommendations to the Commission.
The EEOC emphasizes that independent appeals would remain. It could require additional evidence or refer a case to a judge. We recognize those powers. They do not preserve the employee’s present ability to invoke judge proceedings. Read the proposed process.
That distinction is central to our opposition. Keeping judge proceedings available at the Commission’s discretion is different from preserving an employee’s choice to request them as the next stage of the case.
The Commission must account for what employees lose when that choice disappears. Reviewing an investigative file and conducting proceedings that test its evidence serve different functions.
These Restrictions Would Work Together
The proposal would also demand more at the beginning of a complaint. It would replace the ordinary 45-day period to contact an EEO counselor with 60 days to file a legally sufficient complaint under a more demanding standard.
Those are different tasks. An employee seeking help would instead need to prepare the formal complaint at the outset.
The proposal generally would allow only 21 days after filing to add related claims that already exist. That clock could expire before the agency even tells the employee which claims it has accepted. The restriction reaches claims that existed when the complaint was filed, including claims the employee did not yet know about. Later-arising claims would follow different rules.
It would also abolish administrative class complaints, which allow representatives to challenge a discriminatory practice affecting a group. Jointly processing some individual complaints would not restore that form of group enforcement. Read the proposed filing and class provisions.
Employees would face a tougher legal standard at the outset, with less room to add related claims. Yet they would have less control over reaching judge proceedings that can help them obtain and test evidence. The Commission must justify that combination.
Our letter also challenges changes to representation and relief, examines the treatment of pending cases, and explains the risk of pushing more unresolved disputes into federal court. A process earns confidence by giving employees a fair opportunity to challenge the government’s position.
The Commission Needs to Answer for its Staffing Choices
The EEOC points to delay. Its own budget projects 58 available administrative judges in 2026 and 2027, down from 89 in 2025. It assumes the same incoming hearing volume. That is roughly one-third fewer judges facing the same incoming workload. See the EEOC’s budget, pages 28–29.
That forecast demands an explanation. The Commission should seek adequate funding, hire and retain qualified judges and staff, and manage cases effectively. It has not shown that restricting employee access is a justified answer to its capacity problems.
Federal employees should not have to surrender protections because the government has failed to provide the people needed to make them work.
Your Perspective Belongs in this Debate
You do not need an EEO case or legal training to comment. You can explain which proposed change concerns you, why the protection matters, and why you want it preserved.
For example, you may believe employees should retain the choice to request independent judge proceedings. You may want a fair opportunity to develop a complaint or a way for employees facing the same discrimination to act together. Explain why. You can ask the Commission to withdraw the rewrite.
If you have used the EEO process, your experience can also show what these protections accomplish.
Start with this question: Did you receive a Report of Investigation? Was it complete? What important information did it leave out?
The Report of Investigation, often called the ROI, is the file assembled during the agency’s investigation of your complaint. Consider:
- Were important witnesses never interviewed?
- Were relevant emails, messages, or other records missing?
- Was there information missing about how other employees were treated?
- Did the investigator accept an explanation without following up on contradictions or asking obvious questions?
- Did later evidence gathering, witness questioning, or hearing testimony reveal facts the investigation had missed?
Describe the gap, why it mattered, and what helped bring the missing information to light. You can explain an omission without an agency or judge first acknowledging it.
If a judge’s involvement helped obtain evidence, narrow a dispute, or resolve your case, explain that too. A case does not have to end in a live hearing for judge proceedings to have value.
How to Speak Up
Comments must be received on or before September 28, 2026.
- Open the official comment form. Confirm “Federal Sector Equal Employment Opportunity,” docket EEOC-2026-0067.
- Explain your position in your own words. Connect your concern or experience to the protection you want preserved.
- Review, submit, and save your confirmation.
If the form does not load, use the official proposal page and select “Submit a public comment.”
Comments generally become public. Describe your experience without uploading confidential case files, private information about others, or attorney communications. Consult your lawyer before sharing details covered by a confidentiality obligation or involving a pending case.
A rulemaking comment does not file a discrimination complaint or appeal, or extend a deadline. Continue following the deadlines that apply to your own case.
The next employee who needs these protections could be a colleague, someone you mentor, or you. They deserve a process that gives them a real opportunity to establish what happened.
We have put our objections, supporting law, and analysis of the Commission’s own figures into the public record. We are asking the EEOC to withdraw this rewrite. Your comment can explain why these protections matter to the people whose careers depend on them.
Click to read our full opposition letter