The pro-life and pro-family business community scored a major legal victory after the Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) reached a monumental agreement with the Trump Administration’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the federal court granted a stay in CEA’s lawsuit challenging the EEOC’s approach to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and Title VII.

Under the agreement, the EEOC will not take enforcement action against covered CEA members in ways that would force employers to violate their sincerely held beliefs.

The beliefs specified include requiring them to:

• accommodate abortion or engage in compelled speech about abortion,
• face charges for workplace policies or speech relating to abortion, gender identity, gender transition, or transgender status,
• make exceptions to sex-specific dress codes based on gender identity or transgender status, or
• open private, sex-specific spaces to members of the opposite sex.

The federal court’s stay follows a binding agreement under which CEA is pausing active litigation while the EEOC commits it will not enforce abortion and gender-identity-related workplace mandates against CEA or its members – which include Hobby Lobby and more than 22,000 other faith-based employers operating across all 50 states – while EEOC considers revising its policies.

CEA’s litigation was filed in response to the PWFA framework and related federal positions on Title VII that CEA says pressured employers to comply with mandates that conflict with biblical convictions. Since filing suit, CEA has worked closely with Alliance Defending Freedom to defend employers in federal court.

“This agreement is a major win for business owners and faith-based employers across the country,” said Margaret Iuculano, President of the Christian Employers Alliance. “We are grateful to President Trump and EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas for standing up for religious liberty and protecting the freedom of employers to operate their businesses consistent with their faith – without fear of being targeted by federal enforcement.”

Iuculano added that CEA will continue expanding its efforts beyond Washington, considering many of the most aggressive mandates against faith-based employers now originate at the state level.

“We are now moving our fight to the states, the battleground where employers are often most harmed as the result of sweeping actions of state legislatures,” Iuculano said. “That’s why CEA is expanding its Biblical Business Index, the first system grounded in Scripture to comprehensively track the voting records of all 7,400 state lawmakers – and hold accountable anyone who infringes religious liberty and undermines the freedom of faith-based employers.”

Christian Employers Alliance (CEA) is a national association of more than 300 leading Christian business owners, representing a workforce of over 88,000 employees across every major sector of the U.S. economy. Our members are united by a commitment to Biblical principles, timeless American values, and a desire to honor God through ethical leadership and business excellence.