NEW YORK — President Donald Trump has nominated a Justice Department official to an open seat on a key civil rights agency, signaling his administration's determination to forge ahead with efforts to dismantle diversity policies it claims discriminate against white workers and others.
The White House announced late Monday that it has tapped Matt Zandi to fill a seat previously held by Jocelyn Samuels, one of two Democratic commissioners Trump fired before the end of their terms in an unprecedented move to seize control of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Congress created the bipartisan agency through the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Zandi currently serves as chief of staff for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which saw the mass departure of career lawyers as it shifted to investigating employers and schools for what it considers unlawful diversity and transgender policies. According to his LinkedIn page, Zandi has extensive experience in False Claims Act litigation, which the Trump administration has leveraged in a novel way to penalize government contractors including IBM and Lockheed Martin for pursuing allegedly illegal diversity and inclusion, or DEI, practices.
He would serve a five-year term ending July 1, 2031.
Zandi's confirmation would further shift the balance of power at the EEOC to the right. Currently, there are two Republican commissioners — Andrea Lucas, who is the chair, and Brittany Panuccio — and one Democrat — Kalpana Kotagal, whose term expires next year.
Under Lucas, the EEOC has steadfastly enforced Trump's civil rights priorities, often in tight cooperation with the Department of Justice.
Zandi's nomination comes as the EEOC prepares for several major regulatory changes, including ending a 60-year-old requirement to collect demographic workforce data from many employers and revising rules for enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which Lucas has said improperly extended protections for workers seeking abortions, birth control or fertility treatments.
The Trump administration has yet to nominate anyone to fill a fifth seat, left open by the firing of Democrat Charlotte Burrows.
The impending Democratic takeover of the Senate majority in January raises the possibility that the EEOC won't have five commissioners for the remainder of Trump's term. Leading Democratic senators have vowed not to confirm any of Trump's nominees to the EEOC in protest of his firing of the Democratic commissioners, which they say stripped the agency of its historic independence and bipartisanship.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, criticized Zandi's nomination as further politicizing the EEOC, which enforces the country's employment anti-discrimination laws.
“For a bipartisan commission, the custom is to pair nominees from the two parties. This would be the third Republican commissioner in a row without a pairing, an overtly partisan decision of the administration,” Baldwin said Tuesday, speaking during a Senate committee hearing on the confirmation of Catherine Eschbach to be EEOC general counsel.
However, Trump's approach to the EEOC received a major vindication after the Supreme Court upheld his decision to fire the heads of several independent agencies, significantly expanding presidential power. The ruling prompted Samuels to drop a lawsuit challenging her dismissal from the EEOC.
The nominations of Zandi and Eschbach indicate a push to solidify control of the EEOC while Republicans still control the Senate.
Senate Republicans have mostly praised Trump's approach to civil rights enforcement, and Lucas and Panuccio sailed through their confirmations despite unanimous opposition from Democrats.
“Under this administration, EEOC has sharpened its focus on even-handed enforcement of employment discrimination laws,” Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, said during the hearing on Eschbach, whom he praised.
Zandi's nomination drew applause from America First Legal, an advocacy group founded by Stephen Miller, Trump's newly appointed chief of staff, which has flooded the EEOC with complaints about the DEI programs of prominent companies, some of which are now facing EEOC investigations.
“We are optimistic about his nomination. The agency must remain focused on its core statutory mission: enforcing our civil rights laws as written and addressing discrimination against all Americans, including race- and sex-based preferences masquerading under the banner of DEI," Gene Hamilton, president of America First Legal, said in a statement.
But the National Women's Law Center, a civil rights group, said Zandi had participated in the Justice Department’s misuse of the law to target programs meant to extend equal opportunity to vulnerable communities.
"Matt Zandi’s appointment to the EEOC is another alarming effort by Republicans to seize control of the Commission and turn it against its purposes of promoting workplace equality,” said Lauren Khouri, senior director of workplace equality and senior counsel at NWLC.
The EEOC had no comment. The Department of Justice didn’t reply to a request for comment from Zandi.