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Project 2025, Part II: Labor, and the State Department [1]
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Date: 2025-01-07
Tonight, the focus is on the Department of Labor and the State Department. The proposed changes at Labor could have a broader, more immediate domestic impact, but the cultural changes indicated by those recommended for State are likewise troublesome.
Top line recommended changes, as described below:
Remove gender identity and sexual orientation—as much as possible—from the protections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics (presumably, this would apply to all federal agencies);
Removing any (meaningful) focus on gender equality by USAID
Department of Labor
The Department of Labor isn’t as well-known as some other federal agencies; its mission is
To foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners, job seekers, and retirees of the United States; improve working conditions; advance opportunities for profitable employment; and ensure work-related benefits and rights.
Among the laws it administers are the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act.
It also issues notices and guidance on how to comply with the nondiscrimination provisions in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Project 2025 takes full aim at the role of the Department of Labor with regards to title VII by encouraging the incoming administration to roll back the decision in Bostock v. Clayton County as far as possible:
The Biden Administration, LGBT advocates, and some federal courts have attempted to expand the scope and definition of sex discrimination, based in part on the Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County. Bostock held that “an employer who fires someone simply for being homosexual or transgender” violates Title VII’s prohibition against sex discrimination. The Court explicitly limited its holding to the hiring/firing context in Title VII and did not purport to address other Title VII issues, such as bathrooms, locker rooms, and dress codes, or other laws prohibiting sex discrimination. Notably, the Court focused on the status of the employees and used the term “transgender status” rather than the broader and amorphous term “gender identity.” Restrict the application of Bostock. The new Administration should restrict Bostock’s application of sex discrimination protections to sexual orientation and transgender status in the context of hiring and firing.
Withdraw unlawful “notices” and “guidances.” The President should direct agencies to withdraw unlawful “notices” and “guidances” purporting to apply Bostock’s reasoning broadly outside hiring and firing.
Rescind regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics. The President should direct agencies to rescind regulations interpreting sex discrimination provisions as prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, sex characteristics, etc.
Direct agencies to refocus enforcement of sex discrimination laws. The President should direct agencies to focus their enforcement of sex discrimination laws on the biological binary meaning of “sex.”
At the same time, Project 2025 encourages broad accommodations for religious beliefs in employment matters:
Provide Robust Accommodations for Religious Employees. Title VII requires reasonable accommodations for an employee’s sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, or practices unless it poses an undue hardship on the employer’s business. These accommodation protections also apply to issues related to marriage, gender, and sexuality.
State Department
Almost all the vitriol from Project 2025 vis-a-vis the State Department is directed at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), in particular, the focus of the agency on “gender equity”. Clearly, there’s more than a bit of confusion within Project 2025 about all of this, but here’s what they say:
Families are the basic unit of and foundation for a thriving society. Without women, there are no children, and society cannot continue. As evidenced by the confirmation testimony of now-Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the progressive Left has so misused and altered the definition of what a “woman” is that one of our U.S. Supreme Court Justices was unable to delineate clearly the fundamental biological and sexual traits that define the group of which she is a part. USAID cannot advocate for and protect women when they have been erased globally along with the values and traditional structures that have supported them.
It also recommends a huge shift in language across USAID:
In addition, the next conservative Administration should rescind President Biden’s 2022 Gender Policy [I’m not sure what Policy this is referring to…] and refocus it on Women, Children, and Families and revise the agency’s regulation on “Integrating Gender Equality and Female Empowerment in USAID’s Program Cycle.” It should remove all references, examples, definitions, photos, and language on USAID websites, in agency publications and policies, and in all agency contracts and grants that include the following terms: “gender,” “gender equality,” “gender equity,” “gender diverse individuals,” “gender aware,” “gender sensitive,” etc. It should also remove references to “abortion,” “reproductive health,” and “sexual and reproductive rights” and controversial sexual education materials.
USAID’s staff focus broadly on gender equality and female empowerment around the world, but clearly, Project 2025 has a problem with that:
The next conservative Administration should rename the USAID Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) as the USAID Office of Women, Children, and Families; refocus and realign resources that currently support programs in GEWE to the Office of Women, Children, and Families; redesignate the Senior Gender Coordinator as an unapologetically pro-life politically appointed Senior Coordinator of the Office of Women, Children, and Families; and eliminate the “more than 180 gender advisors and points of contact…embedded in Missions and Operating Units throughout the Agency.”
As always, watch for the actions which could be taken most quickly to happen the soonest: Executive Orders, Agency Directives, and the like. Rolling back regulations, and changing laws, will take longer.
Build Community. Be strategic. We’re all in this together.
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