EEOC announces two key appointments

F.P. Report

WASHINGTON: The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has announced the appointment of two individuals to key Senior Executive Service (SES) mana­gerial positions at the agency. Raymond Peeler and Sharyn Tejani have been selected by Chair Charlotte A. Burrows to serve as Associate Legal Counsels in the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) at EEOC headquarters. Associate Legal Counsels, as deputies to the Legal Counsel, manage areas of practice within OLC and serve as a bridge between career OLC attorneys and agency leadership. 

“I am delighted to recognize Ray’s excellent work in the Office of Legal Counsel and welcome Sharyn as she returns to the EEOC,” said Chair Charlotte A. Burrows. “The agency will greatly benefit from their legal acumen and tremendous experience with employment discrimination issues.”

Peeler, a long time EEOC attorney, began his new position on Feb. 28 and focuses on age discrimination policy and EEOC internal advice and governance. Immediately before his SES appointment, Peeler was the Assistant Legal Counsel for Coordination and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), where he was responsible for working with other federal agencies and developing policies to combat age discrimination in employment. Prior to that, he worked as a special assistant to former Acting EEOC Chair Victoria A. Lipnic and former EEOC Chair Jenny R. Yang.

Peeler is a past government fellow to the American Bar Association’s Labor and Employment Law Section (EEO Committee) and contributed to the Bureau of National Affairs Employment Discrimination Law between 2012-2015.  He graduated from Georgia State University College of Law, where he served on the Law Review Editorial Board, and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Washington and Lee University.

“It is an incredible honor to serve the EEOC in this capacity,” Peeler said. “I’m grateful for this opportunity to continue helping the agency enforce federal civil rights laws for all workers.”

Tejani began her new position today and will focus on policy related to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and defensive litigation.  Prior to joining the EEOC, Tejani was the director of the TIME’S UP Legal Defense Fund and the Legal Network for Gender Equity at the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) Fund, where she helped create and supervise the first nationwide program to connect workers facing sex discrimination and harassment with attorneys and to fund attorneys’ fees and media assistance for selected cases of workplace sex harassment.

Previously, she served as a deputy chief in the Employment Litigation Section of  the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and worked at the EEOC as an attorney advisor to Commissioner Stuart J. Ishimaru. Tejani attended Yale University as an undergraduate and graduated from the Georgetown University School of Law.

“I am thrilled to be rejoining the EEOC and look forward to working with my dedicated and talented colleagues to further the agency’s critical mission,” Tejani said.

The SES is a federal government personnel program in which civil service employees serve at a level just below the top presidential appointees.