The Law Dork Nine: Chai Feldblum

The former EEOC commissioner talks with Law Dork about her work with the AbilityOne Commission, Pride Month speeches past and present, and the work ahead.

I feel like I’ve known Chai Feldblum forever.

Ever since I moved to Washington, D.C., for college, came out, and started immersing myself in the LGBTQ world of D.C., Chai has been a known quantity and a force.

Her key role in working on the Americans with Disabilities Act — winning her long-term supporters from both sides of the aisle — was already set in stone before I arrived. Her work on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act made her a pillar of leadership in the LGBTQ civil rights world.

When I was in law school, she unsurprisingly reappeared in my life, when she authored an amicus brief in 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas — alongside now U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken — urging on behalf several legal associations that the court treat sexual orientation claims with heightened scrutiny if it reached that issue when deciding the constitutionality of sodomy laws. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down sodomy laws that Pride Month, but it did not reach or address the level of scrutiny.

A dozen years later, at a major celebration of the 25th anniversary of the ADA, Feldblum was the only non-lawmaker highlighted in a Roll Call story of the event.

Of course, by then she had a more formal role — as a commissioner of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. It was in that role that I saw her work most up-close as the commission issued several key rulings — including a 2012 ruling that gender identity discrimination is a type of sex discrimination covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and, a few years later, a ruling that sexual orientation discrimination is a type of sex discrimination covered by Title VII.

In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court — in an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch in Bostock v. Clayton County — agreed in another Pride Month decision.

And yet, in Pride Month 2024, conservative lower courts are severely limiting the impact of that ruling — with several having found that the Biden administration likely acted improperly when it applied that logic to the sex discrimination ban in Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. The question is unresolved, and cases are ongoing.

It was as I was writing about the first of those decisions this month, though, that I realized Chai needed to be this month’s Law Dork Nine interview. Now vice chair at the U.S. AbilityOne Commission part-time, we spoke last week.

1. How do you wish to be identified for this?

Chai. Former Georgetown Law professor, former EEOC commissioner, and currently vice chair of the AbilityOne Commission.

2. What is your work?

So, there are two parts of it now. I'm what's called a SGE, special government employee. That's the category, in terms of a government person. So here, in terms of the AbilityOne Commission, I was working in disability rights and employment for years, and I didn't know about the AbilityOne Commission. And so I reviewed it for the Biden transition team — that shows you just how outside of the general knowledge base this is. It just has gotten such a bad rap, legitimately so, because of how it was created. So what I’m trying to do is change that program, significantly, in terms of modernizing. it. It does have significant potential, because unlike a law that just says you can't discriminate, like ADA, or even an affirmative action requirement in government contractors and federal agencies — important as that is, and I worked to strengthen that federal agency, affirmative action when I was EEOC. There’s not a lot of teeth to it. And this is the program where, to be in this program, you have to affirmatively be hiring people who are blind, or people who have other significant disabilities. It's just a whole different orientation. And there's a lot of money. There’s $4 billion that's going through. I think, if we modernize the program, and make sure we have good jobs in it, jobs that are stepping stones for additional jobs, I think we can double it. I think we can get $8 billion in government contracts coming through.

So that’s part-time. And then, I am very selective, but I choose organizations who need help in terms of diversity and anti-harassment. Whether it’s their policies or doing trainings. I do this safe and respectful workplaces training, which is really fascinating. But I do just enough to keep myself busy.

[Chris Geidner: Enough to keep you busy is two full-time jobs for many people.

Chai Feldblum: That is probably true. And my consistent refrain to myself, I am 65 now, is, “You know, you can slow down, it's okay.” And then it just doesn’t happen. I have to say, I have way more flexibility now than I've ever had. And that is that's a great thing to have, and I feel so grateful that I’ve had a career and have come to this point in my career where I can do that.

Geidner: We are both enjoying that moment right now.

Feldblum: Yes!]

3. How does your work relate to the law? (If this is obvious, feel free to skip it — or have fun with it.)

I was thinking about it, and it’s everything that uses my brain and my spirit. Because I’m helping to implement law, interpret laws, change laws — all, all with the goal of advancing social justice. That’s key. The magic that I have is being able to use my brain to think about a way around a problem that is based on legal words. Interpretation. And that’s whether you’re drafting a bill or interpreting a law or writing a regulation. That’s the magic I have. So that’s a lot of how it has played out in my career, and I love that.

4. What job or experience that you’ve had has most shaped your worldview?

I had to think about this — a job versus an experience. It's very interesting to me what people write for that. Because EEOC was definitely, in a sense, one of the most consequential jobs I've held. But, at that point, my worldview was somewhat set.