Two Christian organizations have asked a federal court to rule against former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission member Jocelyn Samuels, a Democrat who is suing after being fired by President Donald Trump, arguing that her support for employment gender identity and abortion mandates violated their religious freedom.
On Thursday, the Christian Employers Alliance and Choices Pregnancy Centers of Greater Phoenix, Inc. filed a motion to intervene in Samuel’s reinstatement suit. They are being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom.
“The Court should not assess Samuels’ removal’s validity without hearing from the very employers that the removal seeks to protect,” the brief says.
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“Many employers — including CEA members — recognize that gender transition efforts and elective abortions harm employees and others. Affirming or facilitating transition efforts or elective abortions ignores the biological realities that humans are male or female and that human life begins at conception.”
During her time at the EEOC, Samuels and fellow Democratic Commissioner Charlotte Burrows interpreted Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to impose gender identity and abortion discrimination mandates on employers, such as compelling coverage of body-mutilating gender transition surgeries or elective abortions.
After President Trump took office in January and ordered the independent agency to rescind those mandates, the commissioners refused, leading to their removal.
Samuels was first appointed during the Obama administration and retained under President Joe Biden. She contends that the EEOC’s five-year fixed term bars at-will dismissal and is suing for reinstatement.
The Christian groups counter that the president must be able to remove officials whose policies conflict with his constitutional duty to execute the laws.
The Christian Employers Alliance says it unites Christian-owned businesses to defend religious freedom, while Choices Pregnancy Center offers life-affirming counselling to women with unplanned pregnancies. The Christian organizations say they could not comply with the EEOC’s mandate because they uphold beliefs that God made humans male and female and that life begins at conception.
CEA obtained a March 4, 2024, judgment forbidding the EEOC and the Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing similar provisions under Title VII or Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act against entities receiving federal funds.
The dispute also revisits presidential control over independent agencies.
In the 1935 Supreme Court ruling of Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States, the court limited dismissal power, but more recent precedents have expanded it.
In March, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the president has the power to terminate appointees at “independent agencies,” citing a previous ruling against Trump appointee Roger Severino at an independent agency who was dismissed during the early days of the Biden administration before his term was up. The intervenors also rely on Severino v. Biden, arguing that allowing Samuels to return would undercut court precedent.
“As for agencies within the president’s executive authority, the president retains that right,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing last month. “And we’ve seen there have been bureaucrats at some of these agencies that have been trying to act independent. They need to remember who they work for. It’s the executive of the executive branch.”
If the court grants reinstatement, the employers warn, the EEOC could restart enforcement immediately. That prospect, they contend, justifies their intervention to defend Trump’s dismissal decision alongside the government.
“CEA supports President Trump’s right to control the EEOC. He has the mandate of the American people, not un-elected commissioners who have imposed woke policies on businesses and nonprofits across this nation,” CEA President Margaret Iuculano said in a statement. “We also continue to encourage the President to nominate EEOC Commissioners who will help overturn unlawful mandates such as the PWFA abortion rule and the Title VII gender-identity workplace harassment rule, which harm CEA’s membership.”
Earlier this week, EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas named former CEA President Shannon Royce to serve as her chief of staff.
