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The ACLU of Michigan announced it is seeking to intervene in a federal transgender rights lawsuit after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission told the court it would drop the case due to President Donald Trump’s executive order directing federal agencies not to promote “gender ideology.”
The Commission’s investigation into the case found that Asher Lucas, a transgender man, and his coworkers Regina Zaviski and Savannah Nurme-Robinson, each lost their job at a Culver’s restaurant in Clarkston after going to supervisors with concerns that Lucas was being mistreated by a fellow coworker because he is transgender.
Following an investigation the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Culver’s and its associated business entities on Oct. 25, 2024, seeking relief for Lucas as well as Zaviski and Nurme-Robinson. However, under the Trump administration, the commission has moved to dismiss its claims in this case, as well as other workplace discrimination cases filed on behalf of transgender employees across the nation, though the ACLU notes the Supreme Court has deemed employment discrimination against transgender people a violation of federal law.
The commission argues these cases may be inconsistent with Trump’s executive order instructing federal agencies to “recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”That assertion was labeled by Lambda Legal as an “appalling approach [that] denies science and will make life immeasurably harder for intersex, nonbinary, and of course transgender people.”
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigates employment discrimination and retaliation claims, including those based on gender identity. If it determines the employer has violated the law, it can sue to enforce that law and seek damages and relief for the affected employees.
Employees typically do not need to personally involve themselves in the case, as the commission job is to represented their interests, however, the decision to withdraw from the case has left Zaviski and Nurme-Robinson without legal recourse unless they independently intervene in the case as plaintiffs, while Lucas has already been granted permission to intervene with separate counsel.
The ACLU of Michigan has filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Zaviski and Nurme-Robinson which will be determined by the U.S. District Court’s Eastern Michigan District Judge Brandy R. McMillion.
“When the government agency that is supposed to protect the civil rights of all people abandons an entire group it is supposed to protect, at the behest of a president who is cruelly vilifying them, we have no choice but to step in and try to help, which we will do with all that we have,” Syeda Davidson, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Michigan, said in a statement.
“This administration’s willingness to ditch its legal obligations is the continuation of the onslaught of attacks on transgender people that is happening in our state and across the country. It is deeply harmful and must be stopped,” Davidson said.
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