Since 2021, federal employees have been protected from workplace discrimination by the Elijah E. Cummings Federal Employee Anti-Discrimination Act of 2020, which added protections, notice, and reporting to the No FEAR Act.
To implement the Cummings Act, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) published proposed rules on January 6, 2022, which are currently in the public comment period.
These rules include:
- Whistleblower and retaliation protections;
- Notice of findings of intentional acts of discrimination to be made on a publically accessible internet page;
- Agencies to submit annual reports to the Director of OPM;
- Agencies to submit disciplinary action reports to Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC);
- Agency employees found to have intentionally committed discriminatory acts, including retaliation, will have notations of the discriminatory acts added to the employee's personnel record;
- New public disclosure obligations; and
- Federal agencies to add new trainings for all employees about their rights and remedies under law.
The comment period ends on 2/07/2022 and then, these rules will be finalized to become effective.
