The Federal Agency in charge of protecting the civil rights of workers has completed a New York administrative judge who opposed the Blanca House directives, including the executive order of President Donald Trump that decrees men and women as two “immutable” sexes.
In February, Administrative Judge Karen Ortiz, who worked at the Office of the US Employment Opportunities Equal Commission. In an email copied to more than 1,000 colleagues, Ortiz pressed Lucas to resign.
Ortiz was fired on Tuesday after being placed on administrative license last month. The EEOC declined on Wednesday to comment on the termination, saying that he does not comment on personnel affairs.
In response to the president of the president who declares two immutable sexes, the EEOC moved to drop at least seven of its pending legal cases on behalf of the transgender workers who presented discrimination complaints. The agency, which enforces anti -discrimination laws in the workplace of the United States, is also classifying all new cases related to gender identity such as its lowest priority.
The actions indicated a great deviation from the previous interpretation of the EEOC of the Civil Rights Law.
In his February email, criticizing the agency’s efforts to comply with Trump’s order, Ortiz told Lucas: “He is not suitable for our president much less to have a license to practice the law.” The letter leaked in Reddit, where he won more than 10,000 “ascending votes.” Many users cheered their author.
Subsequently, the EEOC revoked its email privileges for approximately a week and issued a written reprimand for “discreet behavior.”
Ortiz said he continued “increasing the alarm” about the treatment of the agency of transgender and gender plaintiffs that do not conform, and transmitted his opposition to the agency’s actions. He sent an email of April 24 to Lucas and several other internal email groups with the subject line: “If you are looking for power, here is the power” and a link to the 1985 success of fears “everyone wants to govern the world.”
He distributed his termination proposed earlier this month, arguing in a document presented by a union representative who was fulfilling his office, calling a behavior that he thinks is illegal.
Ortiz “sees that the agency’s actions with respect to LGBTQIA+ plaintiffs have made the EOC a hostile environment for LGBTQIA+ workers”, and believes that leadership has “abandoned the main mission of the EOC,” says the document.
The judge was hired to work in the EEOC during the first Trump administration, and although he did not agree with some policies then, “he did not take any measure because there was no apparent illegality that forced her to do it,” the document said. “What is happening under the current administration is not precedents.”
The letter requested the withdrawal of the termination proposed by Ortiz, the elimination of all the disciplinary documents of their personnel archive, and that Ortiz is allowed to “continue doing their job.”
The six -page termination notice came anyway. In you, the administrative judge Chief Regina Stephens described the “unpleasant and non -professional Ortiz actions”, and concluded that Ortiz’s “work performance is affected” by her disagreements with the current executive orders and the EEOC leadership direction.
The notice also claimed that the media circulation of Ortiz’s emails had “affected the reputation and credibility of the agency.” He cited an article by Associated Press that quoted Ortiz saying that he remained in his email statements as evidence that his behavior would not change with “rehabilitation.”
In a telephone interview on Wednesday with Associated Press, Ortiz said that the news of his termination is “very sad”, although not surprising. “I think the agency has now become something that, I don’t know if I really want to work there. They have lost their course,” he said.
Lucas defended his decision to eliminate demands on behalf of transgender workers during his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee last week. She acknowledged that transgender workers are protected by civil rights laws, but said that her agency is not independent and must comply with presidential orders.
Ortiz said he traveled from New York to Washington “in my own penny, in my own time” to attend the audience. “He had to be there,” he said, adding that he left notes of gratitude for the senators who “put Andrea Lucas’s feet to the fire.”
Ortiz said he is not sure of what comes next, only that he will involve fighting for civil rights. And in the short term, collecting more volunteer dog walk shifts. “I will continue to fight for the LGBTQ community in any way I can,” he told AP.
He added: “Value is needed to take a position and be willing to be fired, and lose a six -digit job and health insurance, and the prestige of the title of ‘Judge’, but I think it will also fulfill an example for future lawyers and young lawyers that a title is not all, and it is more important to stay faithful to their values.”
