NEW YORK (AP) — A former Democratic commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit Wednesday challenging her dismissal by President Donald Trump, arguing her removal was a violation of the Civil Rights Act that created the agency to be an independent and bipartisan protector of the rights of workers.

Jocelyn Samuels and another Democratic commissioner were from the five-member EEOC commission in January, an unprecedent move that swept away what would have been an key obstacle to Trump's campaign to dismantle diversity and inclusion programs, end protections for transgender and nonbinary workers and other priorities. Democracy Forward, a civil rights organization that is leading several other cases against the Trump administration, filed the lawsuit on behalf of Samuels in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia.

“This abrupt and unlawful termination before my term’s completion not only violates federal law, but fundamentally eviscerates the EEOC’s independent structure,” Samuels said a statement.

The White House did not immediately reply to requests seeking comment about the lawsuit, which names Trump, the EEOC and EEOC Acting Chair Andrea Lucas as defendants. The EEOC, through a spokesperson, said it would not comment on litigation.

Had Samuels and the other commissioner, Charlotte Burrows, been able to finish their five-year terms, the EEOC commission would have had a Democratic majority well into Trump’s presidency. It was the first time in the EEOC's 61-year-old history that a president fired commissioners before their terms ended, although the White House and conservative legal experts have argued that nothing in the law prohibited Trump from doing so.

But Samuels' lawsuit argued that Congress, which created the EEOC through the Civil Rights Act in 1964, “did not grant the president authority to remove EEOC Commissioners at will.” Instead, the lawsuit argues, Congress established that commissioners, who are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, would serve staggered terms to ensure “continuity, stability and and insulation from political pressure.”

The EEOC enforces several laws including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, gender, religion and national origin. In most cases, U.S. workers seeking to file a complaint of civil rights violations must go through the EEOC.

Lucas, a Republican who was first appointed by Trump in 2020 and named acting chair in January, has moved swiftly to investigate corporate DEI policies that she argues could result in discrimination, including sending letters to 20 prominent law firms demanding detailed information about their diversity practices.

She has also taken steps to comply with Trump's executive order declaring that the federal government will only recognize two genders, female and male. The EEOC has moved to drop at least seven of its own lawsuits on behalf of workers who claimed they were fired or harassed because of their gender identity.

Before they were fired, Samuels and Burrows, along with a remaining Democratic commissioner, Kalpana Kotagal, issued statements protesting Trump's executive orders aimed at stamping out DEI and removing protections for trans and nonbinary people, saying the orders undermined the EEOC's mission to protect workers from discrimination. In her lawsuit, Samuels said in a letter to her, the White House cited her support for DEI as the “conduct” justifying her removal.

The lawsuit also claims that the firing of Samuels and Burrows unlawfully left the EEOC commission without the quorum needed to make key policy decisions. The EEOC now has just two commissioners, Lucas and Kotagal, because another Republican commissioner, Keith Sonderling, left the EEOC when his term expired last year and is now deputy secretary of labor.

Trump has yet to announce his picks for the three vacancies. Under the Civil Rights Act, the EEOC commission cannot have more than three members from the party controlling the White House, meaning Trump must nominate a Democrat to one of the three vacancies.

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