Why Biden fired Trump’s appointee to a federal civil rights commission.

In his latest attempt to prevent the remnants of the Trump administration from choking his own agenda, President Joe Biden fired Sharon Gustafson, general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, on Friday. Biden had previously requested Gustafson’s resignation, but she refused to step down. Instead, she accused the president of targeting her because of her support for religious liberty. Republicans have rallied behind Gustafson, echoing her accusation that Biden violated norms in a malicious or even discriminatory manner.

This narrative is curious for several reasons: First, by tradition, the EEOC general counsel, a political appointee, steps down upon the inauguration of a new president; it was Gustafson who violated this norm by burrowing into her position. Second, the EEOC defended religious freedom—for both Christians and religious minorities—long before Gustafson’s appointment; if anything, she took a narrower view of the issue, focusing on the rights of Christians at the expense of all others. Finally, it is no secret that Gustafson was an ineffective general counsel who sought to curtail her agency’s litigation against both LGBTQ discrimination and systemic racism. Career attorneys at the EEOC told Slate that her removal is a necessary step toward restoring the agency’s mission, badly damaged by Trump appointees, of safeguarding civil rights for all.

When Donald Trump first nominated Gustafson, Democrats sounded the alarm about her views and qualifications. As a nominee, she would not commit to protecting LGBTQ rights and expressed limited understanding of the EEOC’s work. (Democrats nonetheless supported her confirmation in a voice vote.) The EEOC interprets and enforces civil rights law, bringing lawsuits against employers accused of discrimination; as general counsel, Gustafson had the power to initiate or approve litigation, as well as amicus briefs weighing in on cases that do not directly involve the office. The general counsel also holds substantial influence over policies and guidance outlining the agency’s legal positions. Before she was appointed, Gustafson worked as a solo practitioner representing individual plaintiffs, usually in cases involving religious liberty or pregnancy discrimination. Some of the work was certainly admirable, but it did not equip her to oversee a large agency that handles the full range of discrimination cases, including class actions.

Upon joining the EEOC, Gustafson committed herself to the cause of religious liberty above all else. But she took a very narrow approach to the concept, in line with the Trump administration’s broader conception of “religious freedom” as a weapon to limit other rights, especially reproductive autonomy and LGBTQ equality. Gustafson’s suggestion that the agency previously failed to safeguard religious exercise in the workplace was false; under President Barack Obama, for example, the agency routinely brought lawsuits on behalf of devout employees, including Christians. Obama’s EEOC famously won a major victory at the Supreme Court in favor of Muslims’ right to wear religious apparel on the job. But it also litigated cases on behalf of Christians, including Seventh-day Adventists who observed the Sabbath and evangelicals with specific workplace needs (such as a man who refused to use a biometric hand scanner because he associated it with the mark of the beast).

A staunch abortion opponent, Gustafson seemed more interested in quintessential “culture war” cases that involved Christian employees demanding a right to discriminate. Two current employees of the EEOC told me that she directed attorneys to “find me” a case involving a religious hospital that was penalized for refusing to perform an abortion—so she could weigh in on the side of the hospital. And she took the highly unusual step of supporting employers seeking a “ministerial exception” from civil rights law to discriminate against workers who did not share their faiths.

Gustafson also expressed discomfort with LGBTQ rights, even after the Supreme Court affirmed the EEOC’s long-standing position that the Civil Rights Act bars workplace discrimination against gay and transgender employees in 2020’s Bostock v. Clayton County. At an agencywide meeting after Bostock came down, career staff celebrated a triumph years in the making. Afterward, a current EEOC attorney told me, Gustafson delivered a brief address in which she downplayed the victory and defended those who disagreed with the decision. Shortly before Trump left office, the EEOC also pushed out a new “compliance manual on religious discrimination” that was produced at record speed with virtually no public input. The manual, which Gustafson helped draft, strongly…