General Session with Chai Feldblum & Victoria Lipnic of the EEOC
Commissioners Chai Feldblum and Victoria Lipnic of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will discuss the agency’s new Strategic Enforcement Plan, and review its latest policy developments and other plans.
Chai Feldblum
Chai Feldblum began her service as a Commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in April 2010. She was confirmed by the Senate for a second term, which will end on July 1, 2018.
During Commissioner Feldblum's service on the Commission, she has focused on all the employment civil rights issues within the jurisdiction of the EEOC. She has focused in particular on the employment of people with disabilities, pregnancy accommodation, sexual orientation and transgender discrimination, harassment prevention, the structure and process of the federal sector complaint system and strategic planning for the Commission.
Prior to her appointment to the EEOC, Commissioner Feldblum was a Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law Center. She founded the Law Center's Federal Legislation and Administrative Clinic, which represented a range of organizational clients focused on social justice. She also founded Workplace Flexibility 2010, a policy enterprise focused on finding common ground between employers and employees on workplace flexibility issues.
Commissioner Feldblum played a leading role in helping to draft and negotiate the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the ADA Amendments Act of 2008. She has also worked to advance lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights and was one of the drafters of the original Employment Nondiscrimination Act.
Commissioner Feldblum is the first openly lesbian Commissioner of the EEOC and is the fourth person with a disability to serve on the Commission.
Commissioner Feldblum clerked for Judge Frank Coffin of the First Circuit Court of Appeals and for Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun after receiving her J.D. from Harvard Law School. She received her B.A. degree from Barnard College.
Victoria Lipnic
Victoria A. Lipnic is a Partner at Resolution Economics. She leads the Company’s Human Capital Strategy Group. The Human Capital Strategy Group combines the Company’s expertise in data analytics and deep knowledge of regulatory requirements with an interdisciplinary approach to advise organizations on the full range of their human capital needs and reporting requirements including recruitment, selection, promotions, DE&I, pay equity, and ESG, especially as to equal employment opportunity and anti-discrimination issues.
Ms. Lipnic joined Resolution Economics in 2021. She has broad experience in the full range of human capital, labor and employment issues, especially from the regulatory enforcement perspective. Prior to joining the Company she served as Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) from 2010 to 2020 and Acting Chair from 2017 to 2019. She was appointed to the EEOC by President Barack Obama and confirmed by unanimous consent by the U.S. Senate. At the EEOC she worked on policy, cases, and regulations falling under all of the statutes enforced by the Commission including Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Equal Pay Act (EPA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). While at the EEOC she participated in numerous agency regulatory initiatives including the final GINA regulations, the ADA, as amended, regulations, and the revisions to the EEO-1 form to include pay data reporting. She organized the agency’s first public meeting on Big Data in Employment, created its Chief Data Officer position, oversaw development of the Office of Enterprise Data and Analytics and published a significant report on age discrimination. She co-chaired the EEOC’s Select Task Force on the Study of Harassment in the Workplace, and co-authored its seminal report, issued in 2016, before the #MeToo movement. Prior to the EEOC, she practiced law with Seyfarth Shaw. She also served as Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment Standards from 2002-2008, appointed by President George W. Bush, where, among other regulatory enforcement agencies, she oversaw the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs and the Wage and Hour Division. In 2021-22 she chaired the Artificial Intelligence – Technical Advisory Committee for the Institute for Workplace Equality.