Lawsuit Follows Administration Stonewalling on the Regulatory Rollback

 

Washington, DC — Today Democracy Forward filed a lawsuit demanding that President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) release records detailing Assistant to the President Ivanka Trump’s role in unlawfully eliminating critical transparency requirements designed to root out discrimination and close the wage gap.

The suit follows Ivanka Trump’s public support for removing the protection and empowering roughly 60,886 employers —who collectively employ 63 million workers—to continue shielding race and gender pay gaps from scrutiny. Ms. Trump’s portrayal of herself as an equal pay advocate cannot be squared with her support for ending a requirement that is “necessary” to enforce anti-pay discrimination laws, as found by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

“Ivanka promised to be a voice for working women, but instead she is complicit in the Trump Administration’s rollback of a requirement that would have helped women secure equal pay,” said Democracy Forward Executive Director Anne Harkavy. “Actions speak louder than words.”

The suit follows the Trump Administration’s stonewalling and refusal to release documents in response to Democracy Forward’s request, filed under the Freedom of Information Act five months ago.

In addition to halting the EEOC’s plan to collect employee pay data, since taking office, the Trump Administration  has rolled back protections for student sexual assault survivors, proposed gutting the State Department office that works to end gender-based violence abroad, and removed research on sexual violence from the White House website. The Administration has also made it easier for employers to deny women contraceptive coverage, halted a Department of Labor effort to reduce sexual assault and other workplace violence in the healthcare industry, and rolled back limits on forced arbitration for workplace sexual assault and harassment victims. Recently, the Administration attempted to cut funding from teen pregnancy prevention programs across the country.

###

Democracy Forward is a nonprofit legal organization that scrutinizes Executive Branch activity across policy areas, represents clients in litigation to challenge unlawful actions, and educates the public when the White House or federal agencies break the law.


Press Contact:
Charisma Troiano
(202) 701-1781
ctroiano@democracyforward.org