EEOC Agrees Not to Pursue Gender Identity Claims Against Christian Employers Group
A federal court in North Dakota finalized a settlement on August 18 between the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Christian Employers Alliance, in which the agency agreed not to pursue gender identity discrimination claims against the Alliance or its more than 20,000 member employers over matters such as pronoun use, sex specific dress codes, and access to sex specific private spaces. The Alliance sued the EEOC in January 2025, arguing the agency had wrongly applied Title VII of the Civil Rights Act to force religious employers to adopt practices that conflict with their beliefs about sex and gender.
The agreement covers current Alliance members and any business that joins in the future, so long as it is a member at the time a dispute arises. It does not stop individual employees from bringing their own private lawsuits over the same workplace policies. Alliance for Defending Freedom attorneys, who represented the group, said the settlement lets Christian employers run their businesses in keeping with their faith without fear of federal investigation.
