The Future of Equitable Workplaces
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) provides key workplace policy guidance for employers across the country and is the nation’s leading federal agency dedicated to advancing equal opportunity in the workplace. During this interactive session, hear from EEOC Commissioners about the Commission’s work. Participants will have the opportunity to provide input on the Commission’s priorities and plans for the future.
Jocelyn Samuels
Jocelyn Samuels was designated by President Biden as Vice Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on January 20, 2021. She joined the EEOC as a Commissioner on October 14, 2020, and on July 14, 2021, was confirmed for a second term ending in 2026.
Immediately prior to joining the Commission, Vice Chair Samuels served as the Executive Director and Roberta A. Conroy Scholar of Law at the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, focusing on legal and social science research on issues related to sexual and gender minorities. From August 2014 through January 2017, she was the Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, where she oversaw civil rights enforcement with respect to hospitals, healthcare providers, insurers, and human services agencies. In that role, she spearheaded development of regulations implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act—the first broad-based federal law to prohibit sex discrimination in healthcare. Among other advances, those groundbreaking regulations protected LGBTQ persons from discrimination based on sex stereotyping and gender identity.
Earlier in the Obama Administration, Vice Chair Samuels served as Acting Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice and held other positions as a political appointee within the DOJ Civil Rights Division. There, she directly supervised litigation combating discrimination in employment and education and oversaw work across a range of civil rights issues, including voting rights, systemic reform of police departments, housing discrimination, prosecution of hate crimes, and protections for individuals with disabilities.
Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Vice Chair Samuels was the Vice President for Education & Employment at the National Women’s Law Center, where she led efforts to promote gender equality. Among other accomplishments there, she spearheaded the campaign that led to enactment of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first bill signed into law by President Obama. She had previously served as Labor Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy and spent ten years as a senior policy attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel at the EEOC.
Vice Chair Samuels earned her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude with Phi Beta Kappa honors from Middlebury College. She is a graduate of Columbia University Law School where she was a Note Editor for The Columbia Law Review and a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
Vice Chair Samuels has been married for 37 years and has two grown daughters and two dogs.
Andrea R. Lucas
Andrea R. Lucas was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on September 22, 2020, to be a Commissioner on the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for a term expiring July 1, 2025.
Before her appointment to the EEOC, Commissioner Lucas was a member of the labor and employment and litigation practice groups of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, and was based in the firm’s Washington, D.C. office. Lucas was a member of the firm’s Washington, D.C. Diversity Committee, the Women’s Subcommittee of the D.C. Diversity Committee, and the Parents Resource Group of the D.C. Diversity Committee. While at Gibson Dunn, Lucas represented and advised employers and boards of directors on a wide variety of employment-related issues, including significant employment discrimination litigation, sexual harassment and other sensitive workplace investigations, and compliance with federal and state employment discrimination statutes. Commissioner Lucas has particularly deep experience counseling employers during large-scale voluntary and involuntary separation programs and related reorganizations to prevent discrimination on the basis of age and other protected characteristics. Immediately before joining the Commission, Lucas extensively focused on providing COVID-19-related counseling to employers to help them keep their essential businesses operational or safely reopen their workplaces, while also protecting their employees’ rights under federal and state employment and privacy laws.
Commissioner Lucas is committed to increasing compliance with, and ensuring enforcement of, all laws within the Commission’s jurisdiction. She is particularly interested in outreach, compliance, and enforcement initiatives relating to protected characteristics which may require employers to grant reasonable accommodations, namely, disability, pregnancy-related disability, and religion.
Commissioner Lucas received her B.A., magna cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania and her J.D. from the University of Virginia. Earlier in her career, she clerked on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Lucas is the mother of two young daughters and is only the second Commissioner to give birth during her tenure on the Commission.
Samantha C. Grant
Samantha represents employers in administrative, arbitration and trial proceedings in labor and employment matters, including single-plaintiff, class and collective actions. She has extensive experience litigating discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wage and hour, breach of contract, fraud, defamation, trade secret, covenants not to compete, and unfair competition cases, among others. She also advises clients on litigation avoidance strategies and local, state and federal compliance matters, as well as conducts management and workforce training. The insight and experience she gained while on a two-year secondment, as in-house employment counsel for a Fortune 50 company, was invaluable in her becoming a particularly pragmatic outside counsel.