By Mark Adams
On January 22, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted to rescind its 2024 Enforcement Guidance on Harassment in the Workplace, withdrawing a sweeping document that had expanded and modernized the agency’s discussion of harassment theories, contemporary examples, and enforcement approaches.
While the Commission did not cite a single cause for the rescission in its short press release (which you can access by clicking here), the decision occurred against the backdrop of Executive Order 14168 (called “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government”) which stated that the term “sex” does not include the concept of “gender identity” and went on to direct federal agencies to rescind all guidance inconsistent with that Executive Order.
While EEOC harassment guidance was not mentioned expressly, that guidance had incorporated gender identity examples (among other examples) within its discussion of unlawful harassment. Therefore, the EEOC action should not come across as a surprise.
The rescission does not automatically invalidate pending EEOC charges or halt ongoing investigations. The legal standards governing hostile work environment claims, employer liability, and retaliation remain intact. However, the recission likely will narrow how those legal standards are applied in the future particularly where the rescinded guidance had gone further than older EEOC materials in describing emerging or contested issues.
It is also important to note that EEOC’s action does not have a bearing on state law per se nor of the regulations and guidance that state agencies have promulgated (as many northeastern states including the New England states and New York have more expansive anti-discrimination provisions beyond Title VII to prohibit the likes of gender identity and sexual orientation discrimination).
Therefore, employers in these states should not roll back policies or training in response to the rescission; if anything, the development underscores the importance of grounding workplace programs in state statutes, agency regulations, and court decisions rather than relying on any single federal guidance document. Executive Order 14168 may have influenced the EEOC’s decision to narrow its interpretive posture, but it does not reduce employers’ real-world exposure or expectations when it comes to maintaining a harassment-free workplace in the future.