On Wednesday, May 8, 2019, Janet Dhillon was confirmed by the Senate and is expected to take her place on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. This action can be found on the congress.gov website.

Ms. Dhillon was originally nominated for a post on the EEOC in 2017. Her nomination had been stalled until early this year. In February, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions favorably reported her nomination, and in May her nomination was finally added to the docket for a full vote by the Senate. Ms. Dhillon was confirmed Wednesday on a 50-43 vote.

EEOC has had only two members since January. Since the five member panel has not had a quorum since that time, no formal actions could be taken by the Commission. With the addition of Ms. Dhillon, EEOC will now be able to move forward on a variety of pending matters.

One of the issues EEOC is likely to take up quickly involves the scheduled pay data collection for the EEO-1 report. The commission would have the right to rescind its decision to collect pay data. There are other actions available to the commission to intercede in the federal court case involving the collection of pay data. (Please see previous blog posts on this site in regard to that case.)

Janet Dhillon was confirmed to be chair of the EEOC, and will succeed acting chair Victoria Lipnic in this role. Ms. Lipnic will remain with the EEOC.