The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission is seeking to fire the administrative judge who became of symbol of resistance after she spoke out against a Trump administration directive for the agency to pause its discrimination investigations regarding transgender people.
The judge, Karen Ortiz, received notice on Wednesday that she was being placed on paid administrative leave pending the process to remove her from the position she’s held for more than six years. The commission enforces laws against employment discrimination in the federal government and the private sector.
In letters reviewed by The New York Times, Ms. Ortiz’s supervisor, New York District Office Acting District Director Arlean Nieto, said she was seeking to terminate Ms. Ortiz for “conduct unbecoming of a federal employee” and failing to follow the agency’s email policy.
Ms. Ortiz gained national attention in February when someone leaked her email to the commission’s acting chairwoman, Andrea Lucas, calling on her to resign. Ms. Ortiz accused Ms. Lucas of following the “illegal and unethical orders of our president” and violating the Constitution.
“I will not compromise my ethics and my duty to uphold the law,” Ms. Ortiz wrote in the email, which she copied to about 1,000 of her colleagues. She acknowledged that she was making herself a target for the administration.
The email went viral among those looking for signs of resistance to the Trump administration’s deep cuts to the federal government and its targeting of marginalized groups.
The agency turned off Ms. Ortiz’s email access and sent her a letter of reprimand warning that she had violated agency policy requiring all-employee emails sent to other offices be pre-approved by the office director.
In response, Ms. Ortiz sent more emails calling on Ms. Lucas to resign and accusing her of misconduct, including one that asked Ms. Lucas to ponder what she was allowing herself to be a part of and then linked to a video of the Tears for Fears song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” The content of the emails, Ms. Nieto wrote, was “profoundly unprofessional.”
The Equal Opportunity Employment Commission sent Ms. Ortiz the letters a few weeks after President Trump mentioned her — though not by name — in an executive order on April 18 that aimed to make it easier to fire government workers who “oppose presidential policies.”
The commission declined by email to comment. Ms. Ortiz has 15 days to reply to the accusations. She said she intends to fight but has no regrets.
“These are quite literally trumped-up charges,” she said. “I stand behind my actions, which support the rule of law and the trans community.”
Nikole Hannah-Jones is a domestic correspondent for The New York Times Magazine covering racial injustice and civil rights.
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