National
EEOC settlement triggers call for ENDA executive order
Straight worker allegedly subjected to anti-gay epithets
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission secured a $155,000 settlement against a federal contractor in a workplace discrimination case last week, triggering a call from one LGBT advocacy group for action from the Obama administration to address the issue further.
On Jan. 6, EEOC announced that DynCorp International LLC, a military contractor and aircraft maintenance company in Fairfax, Va., agreed to pay $155,000 in relief in a sex-based discrimination case.
The case involves James Friso, a straight aircraft sheet metal/structural mechanic working in Taji, Iraq, who was allegedly subjected to gender-based harassment — including anti-gay epithets — by a male co-worker.
According to the EEOC complaint, one of Friso’s male co-workers began making derogatory sex-based comments to Friso on a daily basis around November 2006. The co-worker allegedly called Friso “faggot,” “dick-sucker,” and “queer” on a daily basis.
Other comments allegedly referenced Friso’s stature, who’s five-feet, four inches tall, including “whiney little bitch,” “short little mother fucker” and “short little bitch.”
Additionally, the co-worker accused Friso of engaging in homosexual acts, even though the co-workers knew Friso was married to a woman. The co-worker allegedly made this comment in front of management, but no action was taken.
The complaint states Friso regularly complained to DynCorp management, but no action was taken. After continued complaints, managers allegedly told Friso they “would get rid of him.”
That eventually came to pass. Friso was transferred to Mannheim, Germany to a post with lower pay. The co-worker who allegedly subjected to Friso to sex-based discrimination continued to work at Taji.
EEOC filed a complaint in August 2011 in federal district court in Virginia on the basis that the sex-based discrimination violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. The announcement on Friday was the result of that complaint.
In addition to agreeing to pay $155,000 in relief to Friso, DynCorp must provide anti-harassment and anti-retaliation training to managers and human resource personnel. DynCorp is also enjoined from engaging in further sex-based harassment or retaliation and has agreed to allow EEOC to monitor it for the decree’s term.
Lynette A. Barnes, regional attorney for EEOC’s Charlotte District, whose jurisdiction includes Virginia, said in a statement the result of the case is a reminder that sex-based discrimination shouldn’t be tolerated.
“This lawsuit should remind employers that employees have a legal right to a workplace free of harassment, including harassment based on sex-based stereotypes,” Barnes said. “Employers must be careful about allowing comments concerning sexual orientation to be made in the workplace because if those comments are based on sexual stereotyping, they might violate the law.”
But Ashley Burke, a spokesperson for DynCorp, denied the company engaged in any wrongdoing even though it accepted the terms of the settlement.
“The Company was not involved in any wrongdoing and wholly denies all of the allegations contained in the Complaint,” Burke said. “This case involves a personal dispute that occurred five years ago, and the alleged harasser is no longer with the Company. We are pleased to put the matter behind us.”
One LGBT workplace rights advocate said the incident calls for additional administrative action from the Obama administration.
Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, took issue with the consent decree in the case for not mentioning sexual orientation.
“The company will not have to add sexual orientation or gender identity to its non-discrimination policy,” Almeida said. “Even after this case, DynCorp can discriminate against LGBT employees while getting fat on billions of dollars in taxpayer money.”
Almeida said the action against DynCorp demonstrates the need for an executive order prohibiting federal dollars from going to companies that do not have non-discrimination protections for employees based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
“The members of the civil rights enforcement team at the Department of Labor currently have their hands tied and are not allowed to investigate federal contractors like DynCorp for discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation because President Obama has not yet signed the ENDA executive order,” Almeida said.
DynCorp receives more than 96 percent of its revenue from federal contracts that amount to $2 billion each year, making it the 32nd largest federal contractor, according to Freedom to Work. However, protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity aren’t included in the company’s non-discrimination policy.
The “ENDA” executive order is so named because it would be similar to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, legislation that would prohibit workplace discrimination against LGBT people.
The order would enable LGBT Americans who face workplace discrimination to file complaints with the Labor Department. Possible remedies include payment of back wages or reinstatement for LGBT employees who faced discrimination.
Almeida has called on Obama to issue the executive order before, and now says he’s “optimistic” that Obama will sign the order in early 2012.
“During just the past few months alone, the president has taken more than 20 strong executive actions under the slogan ‘We Can’t Wait’ for the current dysfunctional Congress to act,” Almeida said. “It’s a logical next step to sign an executive order granting LGBT Americans the freedom to work for federal contractors without fear of discrimination or harassment on the job.”
The White House hasn’t said whether it would be open to issuing such an executive order despite the president’s support for ENDA.
DynCorp’s Burke insisted the company already has protections in place for its workers, saying the company “encourages a positive, supportive work environment where harassment or retaliation of any kind is simply not tolerated.”
“In addition to anti-harassment training provided to all new hires, personnel receive refresher training, anti-harassment policies are posted throughout worksites, and our Code of Ethics and Business Conduct clearly states the Company’s zero tolerance of harassment and retaliation,” Burke said.
In the early 2000s, a DynCorp employee who alleged that company workers in Bosnia had purchased young women from brothels and kept them as sex slaves was terminated from her job and later won a $173,000 judgment from an employment tribunal in Britain.
In May 2008, a federal jury ordered DynCorp to pay $15 million to a minority-owned telecommunications contractor that charged DynCorp with terminating a contract on the basis of racial discrimination, according to the Washington Post.
Asked whether the settlement has prompted DynCorp to reconsider its non-discrimination policy, Burke replied, “Although there was no wrongdoing on the part of the Company identified in this case, we are always looking for ways to further strengthen our policies and procedures and this is one area that we are currently examining.”
New York
Men convicted of murdering two men in NYC gay bar drugging scheme sentenced
One of the victims, John Umberger, was D.C. political consultant
A New York judge on Wednesday sentenced three men convicted of killing a D.C. political consultant and another man who they targeted at gay bars in Manhattan.
NBC New York notes a jury in February convicted Jayqwan Hamilton, Jacob Barroso, and Robert DeMaio of murder, robbery, and conspiracy in relation to druggings and robberies that targeted gay bars in Manhattan from March 2021 to June 2022.
John Umberger, a 33-year-old political consultant from D.C., and Julio Ramirez, a 25-year-old social worker, died. Prosecutors said Hamilton, Barroso, and DeMaio targeted three other men at gay bars.
The jury convicted Hamilton and DeMaio of murdering Umberger. State Supreme Court Judge Felicia Mennin sentenced Hamilton and DeMaio to 40 years to life in prison.
Barroso, who was convicted of killing Ramirez, received a 20 years to life sentence.
National
Medical groups file lawsuit over Trump deletion of health information
Crucial datasets included LGBTQ, HIV resources
Nine private medical and public health advocacy organizations, including two from D.C., filed a lawsuit on May 20 in federal court in Seattle challenging what it calls the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s illegal deletion of dozens or more of its webpages containing health related information, including HIV information.
The lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington, names as defendants Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and HHS itself, and several agencies operating under HHS and its directors, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Food and Drug Administration.
“This action challenges the widespread deletion of public health resources from federal agencies,” the lawsuit states. “Dozens (if not more) of taxpayer-funded webpages, databases, and other crucial resources have vanished since January 20, 2025, leaving doctors, nurses, researchers, and the public scrambling for information,” it says.
“These actions have undermined the longstanding, congressionally mandated regime; irreparably harmed Plaintiffs and others who rely on these federal resources; and put the nation’s public health infrastructure in unnecessary jeopardy,” the lawsuit continues.
It adds, “The removal of public health resources was apparently prompted by two recent executive orders – one focused on ‘gender ideology’ and the other targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion (‘DEI’) programs. Defendants implemented these executive orders in a haphazard manner that resulted in the deletion (inadvertent or otherwise) of health-related websites and databases, including information related to pregnancy risks, public health datasets, information about opioid-use disorder, and many other valuable resources.”
The lawsuit does not mention that it was President Donald Trump who issued the two executive orders in question.
A White House spokesperson couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the lawsuit.
While not mentioning Trump by name, the lawsuit names as defendants in addition to HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., Matthew Buzzelli, acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Jay Bhattacharya, director of the National Institutes of Health; Martin Makary, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration; Thomas Engels, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; and Charles Ezell, acting director of the Office of Personnel Management.
The 44-page lawsuit complaint includes an addendum with a chart showing the titles or descriptions of 49 “affected resource” website pages that it says were deleted because of the executive orders. The chart shows that just four of the sites were restored after initially being deleted.
Of the 49 sites, 15 addressed LGBTQ-related health issues and six others addressed HIV issues, according to the chart.
“The unannounced and unprecedented deletion of these federal webpages and datasets came as a shock to the medical and scientific communities, which had come to rely on them to monitor and respond to disease outbreaks, assist physicians and other clinicians in daily care, and inform the public about a wide range of healthcare issues,” the lawsuit states.
“Health professionals, nonprofit organizations, and state and local authorities used the websites and datasets daily in care for their patients, to provide resources to their communities, and promote public health,” it says.
Jose Zuniga, president and CEO of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC), one of the organizations that signed on as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a statement that the deleted information from the HHS websites “includes essential information about LGBTQ+ health, gender and reproductive rights, clinical trial data, Mpox and other vaccine guidance and HIV prevention resources.”
Zuniga added, “IAPAC champions evidence-based, data-informed HIV responses and we reject ideologically driven efforts that undermine public health and erase marginalized communities.”
Lisa Amore, a spokesperson for Whitman-Walker Health, D.C.’s largest LGBTQ supportive health services provider, also expressed concern about the potential impact of the HHS website deletions.
“As the region’s leader in HIV care and prevention, Whitman-Walker Health relies on scientific data to help us drive our resources and measure our successes,” Amore said in response to a request for comment from the Washington Blade.
“The District of Columbia has made great strides in the fight against HIV,” Amore said. “But the removal of public facing information from the HHS website makes our collective work much harder and will set HIV care and prevention backward,” she said.
The lawsuit calls on the court to issue a declaratory judgement that the “deletion of public health webpages and resources is unlawful and invalid” and to issue a preliminary or permanent injunction ordering government officials named as defendants in the lawsuit “to restore the public health webpages and resources that have been deleted and to maintain their web domains in accordance with their statutory duties.”
It also calls on the court to require defendant government officials to “file a status report with the Court within twenty-four hours of entry of a preliminary injunction, and at regular intervals, thereafter, confirming compliance with these orders.”
The health organizations that joined the lawsuit as plaintiffs include the Washington State Medical Association, Washington State Nurses Association, Washington Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Academy Health, Association of Nurses in AIDS Care, Fast-Track Cities Institute, International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, National LGBT Cancer Network, and Vermont Medical Society.
The Fast-Track Cities Institute and International Association of Providers of AIDS Care are based in D.C.
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge scraps trans-inclusive workplace discrimination protections
Ruling appears to contradict US Supreme Court precedent
Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has struck down guidelines by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission designed to protect against workplace harassment based on gender identity and sexual orientation.
The EEOC in April 2024 updated its guidelines to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which determined that discrimination against transgender people constituted sex-based discrimination as proscribed under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
To ensure compliance with the law, the agency recommended that employers honor their employees’ preferred pronouns while granting them access to bathrooms and allowing them to wear dress code-compliant clothing that aligns with their gender identities.
While the the guidelines are not legally binding, Kacsmaryk ruled that their issuance created “mandatory standards” exceeding the EEOC’s statutory authority that were “inconsistent with the text, history, and tradition of Title VII and recent Supreme Court precedent.”
“Title VII does not require employers or courts to blind themselves to the biological differences between men and women,” he wrote in the opinion.
The case, which was brought by the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation, presents the greatest setback for LGBTQ inclusive workplace protections since President Donald Trump’s issuance of an executive order on the first day of his second term directing U.S. federal agencies to recognize only two genders as determined by birth sex.
Last month, top Democrats from both chambers of Congress reintroduced the Equality Act, which would codify LGBTQ-inclusive protections against discrimination into federal law, covering employment as well as areas like housing and jury service.
Calendar: May 23-29
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