On Jan. 22, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted to rescind its 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace (“2024 Harassment Guidance”). The rollback of the Biden-era guidance follows the Trump Administration’s Executive Order 14168 from Jan. 20, 2025, which directed agencies to remove policies that “promote gender ideology,” and a May 2025 Texas federal district court decision challenging portions of the Harassment Guidance. No replacement guidance has been announced.
Background on The Harassment Guidance
The 2024 Harassment Guidance communicated the EEOC’s prior position on harassment in the workplace and was the most comprehensive declaration to date of the agency’s long-standing principles on federal anti-discrimination laws while clarifying the agency’s position on workplace issues. The document clarified what constituted unlawful workplace discrimination based on characteristics protected by federal laws including race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, genetic information and retaliation. Notably, consistent with the Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, the 2024 Harassment Guidance clarified the EEOC’s position that federal protection from workplace discrimination based on sex extends to sexual orientation and gender identity. For more information on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock, see our prior Legal Alert.
The 2024 Harassment Guidance served as a toolkit for many employers as it provided insight into how the federal enforcement agency assessed compliance, provided realistic scenarios illustrating how to navigate routine workplace interactions, and included tips to avoid common workplace pitfalls.
What Precipitated the Rescission?
Following Bostock, the Trump Administration declared in its January 2025 Executive Order 14168 that “the policy of the United States is to recognize two sexes, male and female,” and directed federal agencies to “enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality.” To this end, the Administration instructed each federal agency to “enforce laws governing sex-based rights, protections, opportunities, and accommodations to protect men and women as biologically distinct sexes.” Additionally, the Administration instructed the U.S. Attorney General to issue guidance protecting people’s “freedom to express the binary nature of sex” and “the right to single-sex spaces in workplaces,” and directed the EEOC to prioritize investigations and litigation consistent with this forthcoming guidance.
Later, when assessing the legality of the 2024 Harassment Guidance, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas held in a May 2025 decision in Texas v. Equal Emp. Opportunity Comm’n, 785 F.Supp. 3d 170, 177 (N.D. Tex. 2025) that the “EEOC exceeded its statutory authority by issuing [the Harassment] Guidance requiring bathroom, dress, and pronoun accommodations inconsistent with … Title VII….”
How Does the Recission Affect Employers?
By rescinding the 2024 Harassment Guidance in its entirety, the EEOC has effectively eliminated the EEOC’s framework for assessing claims of harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation under Title VII in the wake of Bostock. The 2024 Harassment Guidance provided a framework for assessing whether an employer’s repeatedly misgendering an employee, refusal to acknowledge an employee’s preferred pronouns, and denial of an employee’s request to access to the restroom aligning with the employee’s gender identity constituted sex-based harassment. Now, the agency has no published framework for assessing such claims.
What Has Not Changed?
The rollback of the 2024 Harassment Guidance does not rescind, modify or otherwise alter federal statutes prohibiting discrimination, harassment or retaliation based on protected characteristics, including race, color, national origin, sex, age and disability.
Likewise, the rollback does not affect state and local fair employment practice laws, which may provide broader protections than federal law.
- New York: New York’s Human Rights Law prohibits workplace discrimination based on age, arrest record, citizenship or immigration status, conviction records, creed/religion, disability, status as a victim of domestic violence, familial status, gender identity or expression, lawful source of income, marital status, national origin, predisposing genetic characteristics, pregnancy-related condition, race/color, sex, sexual orientation or being a victim of retaliation. Also, unlike federal law, New York law does not follow the “severe or pervasive” standard for assessing harassment claims. Instead, New York deems conduct to be harassing if it subjects individuals to inferior terms, conditions or privileges of employment beyond “petty slights or trivial inconveniences.”
- Connecticut: Connecticut’s Fair Employment Practices Act prohibits workplace discrimination based on age, ancestry, color, learning disability, marital status, intellectual disability, national origin, physical disability, mental disability, race, religious creed, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, status as a veteran and status as a victim of domestic violence.
- Massachusetts: Massachusetts’ Human Rights Law prohibits workplace discrimination based on race, color, disability, age, religious creed, sex, pregnancy/nursing or other pregnancy condition, sexual orientation, parental leave, gender identity/gender expression, marital status, national origin ancestry, active military, veteran status, retaliation, genetic information, criminal record, public assistance and children (discrimination due to the presence of lead paint).
Moreover, the EEOC’s action does not rescind or otherwise affect the Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock that discrimination based on “sex” under Title VII includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Per EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, “Rescinding this guidance does not give employers license to engage in unlawful harassment.” Indeed, “[f]ederal employment laws against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, and Supreme Court precedent interpreting those laws, remain firmly in place.”
Practical Tips For Employers
- Consider all applicable anti-discrimination laws. Despite the EEOC’s recission of the Harassment Guidance, employers are still required to comply with their state and local fair employment practices laws. For example, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts employers may still face charges before their respective state-level enforcement agencies (i.e., New York State Division on Human Rights, New York City Commission on Human Rights, Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination) for claims of workplace discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity. Accordingly, in addition to being aware of changes in the federal landscape, employers must be aware of their continuing obligations at the state and local levels.
- Policy review and re-training. Review employee handbooks and relevant workplace policies to ensure continued compliance with federal, state and local laws, and provide refresher training for staff responsible for implementing such policies and investigating internal discrimination, harassment and retaliation claims.
Harris Beach Murtha’s Labor and Employment Practice Group is following this and related matters. For questions about how the EEOC’s recission of the Harassment Guidance may impact your company, existing or anticipated EEOC charges or litigation, please contact attorney Patricia E. Reilly at (203) 772-7733 and preilly@harrisbeachmurtha.com; attorney Salvatore G. Gangemi at (203) 653-5436; (212) 425-0630 and sgangemi@harrisbeachmurtha.com; attorney Eboné Lauren Luciano at (203) 772-7711 and eluciano@harrisbeachmurtha.com; or the Harris Beach Murtha attorney with whom you most frequently work.
This alert is not a substitute for advice of counsel on specific legal issues.
Harris Beach Murtha’s lawyers and consultants practice from offices throughout Connecticut in Bantam, Hartford, New Haven and Stamford; New York State in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Ithaca, New York City, Niagara Falls, Rochester, Saratoga Springs, Syracuse, Long Island and White Plains, as well as in Boston, Massachusetts, and Newark, New Jersey.
