President Donald Trump has nominated Matthew Zandi, chief of staff and special counsel in the U.S. Department of Justice, to serve as a member of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, per a White House announcement Monday.
Zandi served under Harmeet Dhillon, who resigned from her position as assistant attorney general for civil rights on Thursday. Dhillon oversaw a complete reorganization of the Civil Rights Division within DOJ and was an outspoken critic of what the Trump administration called illegal diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
If confirmed, Zandi would replace the seat vacated in 2025 by Jocelyn Samuels, who Trump controversially fired before the end of her term. He would further solidify a Republican majority on the EEOC, joining current EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas and Commissioner Brittany Panuccio. His term would end July 1, 2031.
The National Women’s Law Center derided Trump’s choice in part because of Zandi’s service under Dhillon, calling him “instrumental” to Dhillon’s mission to bring cases against DEI programs under the False Claims Act.
“Matt Zandi’s appointment to the EEOC is another alarming effort by Republicans to seize control of the Commission and turn it against its purposes of promoting workplace equality,” Lauren Khouri, senior director of workplace equality and senior counsel at NWLC, said in a statement Tuesday. “This nomination seeks to equip Chair Andrea Lucas with total power to execute her radical anti-worker agenda.”
Thus far, Lucas has focused on eliminating what the Trump administration refers to as “illegal DEI.” Under her leadership, EEOC has solicited anti-American bias charges as well as charges by White men who feel they have experienced workplace discrimination. Lucas’s EEOC also rescinded a Biden-era workplace harassment guidance that sought to protect transgender workers from actions including “outing,” intentional name or pronoun misuse and denial of access to sex-segregated spaces that aligned with their gender identity.
Kalpana Kotagal remains the only member of the EEOC nominated by former President Joe Biden and the only Democrat; her term will expire in July 2027. Lucas and Panuccio’s terms extend to July 2030 and July 2029, respectively, essentially solidifying a Republican majority until the end of Panuccio’s term if Zandi is confirmed.
The EEOC, per law, can only have three members of the same political party at any time.