EEOC Publishes Guidance On Discrimination Against American Nationals In Employment

On November 19, 2025, the EEOC published a technical assistance document titled "Discrimination Against American Workers Is Against the Law” and simultaneously updated the government's National Origin Discrimination landing page to highlight its new focus on the applicability of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to discrimination against American nationals.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employment discrimination based on national origin. Although the EEOC guidance notes that the Act's protections “apply equally to all racial, ethnic, and national origin groups,” it specifically addresses American workers, advising them of the protections afforded by Title VII and directing them to contact the EEOC if they have believe they have experienced anti-American discrimination in the workplace.

The EEOC's guidance provides examples of potentially actionable discriminatory misconduct, including job advertisements specifically seeking individuals with H-1B visas, terminating American employees as a “much higher rate than employees who are visa guest workers,” and making employment decisions that show a preference for “foreign workers, including workers with a particular visa status, over American workers.” Additionally, the technical assistance document informs employers that client preferences and lower labor costs cannot be used to justify discriminatory practices, stating that an action “motivated—in whole or in part—by an applicant's or employee's national origin” may be unlawful. The landing page further clarifies that “[p]ay discrimination related to national origin can include an employer paying employees who are visa guest workers (including workers on H-1B visas, H-2A visas, etc.) less than similarly situated American workers.”

The guidance further demonstrates the stated commitment of EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas to protect American workers from anti-American bias and arrives amid the EEOC's broader push to scrutinize DEI hiring practices. See the EEOC's May 2025 publications: “What to Do If You Experience Discrimination Related to DEI at Work” and “What You Should Know about DEI -Related Discrimination at Work.”

It remains to be seen how aggressively the EEOC moves to file lawsuits addressing claims of discrimination against American nationals. We should expect the EEOC to be oriented in favor of finding probable cause of a violation of Title VII when individuals alleging such discrimination file charges alleging that their employer's conduct discriminated against them on the basis of their American nationality. As always, however, the courts may take a different view of how Title VII should be interpreted than the EEOC.

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