News & Commentary

July 13, 2026

Melinda Meng

Melinda Meng is a student at Harvard Law School.

In today’s News and Commentary, The New York Times files a retaliation suit against the EEOC, the US government pushes back the termination of Temporary Protected Status for Haiti, and a federal judge grants a preliminary injunction to two disabled federal workers seeking reasonable telework accommodations.

On Friday, The New York Times filed a response accusing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of unconstitutional retaliation in its suit against the news organization on behalf of a white male journalist. The EEOC filed suit against The Times over its hiring and promotion practices on May 5, 2026, claiming that the company failed to promote a “significantly more qualified white male” in favor of a less qualified candidate that satisfied diversity goals. The Times responded in its filing that the EEOC did not have any evidence to support its claim and that its lawsuit was unlawful retaliation in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments. The Times pointed to a piece it had published a week prior to that was critical of the EEOC under Republican Chair Andrea Lucas. In addition to its constitutional claims, The Times accused the EEOC of violating the Administrative Procedure Act in pursuing an arbitrary and capricious enforcement action fueled by the Trump administration’s animus towards certain news organizations.

On Friday, the US government pushed out the expiration date for more than 350,000 Haitians covered by Temporary Protected Status from July 10 to July 24, 2026. Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem determined in November 2025 that Haiti no longer met the conditions for designation for Temporary Protected Status. Haiti’s TPS designation was originally slated to terminate on February 6, 2026, but the Secretary’s TPS termination decision was stayed by the District Court for the District of Columbia. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Mullin v. Doe, the Trump administration may proceed with the termination of programs for Haitian and Syrian nationals. The end of employment authorizations for hundreds of thousands of Haitians is threatening to leave nursing homes, hospitals, and home-care agencies short-staffed, as roughly 21,000 Haitian TPS holders work as nursing assistants and caregivers. Caregiving providers are already facing staffing shortages, and the termination of TPS is only expected to exacerbated the situation.

On Friday, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted a preliminary injunction to two disabled federal immigration attorney-advisers seeking reasonable telework accommodations. Under President Trump, the DOJ implemented a return to office policy that led to agencies denying telework as a reasonable accommodation. Kimberly Panian, who has a combination of disabilities that can present as strokes, and Hoi Yee Baxter, who is being treated for lung cancer and is immunocompromised, were allegedly denied their telework accommodation requests, in violation of Section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act.

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