The Senate confirmed Kalpana Kotagal as an EEOC Commissioner on July 14, 2023. The EEOC is a bipartisan Commission comprised of five presidentially appointed members, including the Chair, Vice Chair, and three Commissioners. Kotagal is now the third Democrat on the commission, giving Democrats the majority for the first time in the Biden Administration. With the shift to a Democrat majority, employers can expect the EEOC to focus on matters such as sexual harassment, LGBTQIA+ discrimination, pregnancy accommodations and discrimination, and artificial intelligence bias. It is also very likely the agency will reinstate the EEO-1 Component 2 (wages and hours worked data collection) reporting, as EEOC Commissioner Keith E. Sonderling warned “watch out, it is coming” at the DirectEmployers Annual Meeting & Conference back in April. Component 2 was put on hold in 2020 due to the administrative burden imposed on employers.
