We round out our series on recent federal agency action by discussing the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA). The Proposed Rules would update existing nondiscrimination and equal opportunity provisions of the WIOA, which is the DOL’s primary mechanism for providing job training funding. Thus, the proposed rules would only impact organizations funded by the DOL to provide job training under the WIOA. This is not a small number. There are approximately 34,450 recipients of WIOA funding annually, and those organizations serve approximately 56 million individuals.

Currently, the WIOA “prohibits the exclusion of an individual from participation in, denial of the benefits of, discrimination in, or denial of employment in the administration of or in connection with, any programs and activities funded or otherwise financially assisted in whole or in part under Title I of the WIOA because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, political affiliation or belief, and for beneficiaries only, citizenship status, or participation in a program or activity that receives financial assistance under Title I of WIOA.” The Proposed Rules would update the WIOA, as the DOL believes that “the current rule does not reflect recent developments in equal opportunity and nondiscrimination jurisprudence.” 
Continue Reading DOL Seeks to Expand the Definition of Illegal Discrimination