President Donald Trump recently revoked former President Barack Obama's Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces executive order with one of his own.
Obama's 2014 order aimed to ensure businesses receiving federal contracts comply with labor and civil rights laws, and it was particularly lauded by women's rights advocates. The Fair Pay order required employers to provide both the government and employees with detailed reports on wages and banned forced arbitration clauses for sexual harassment, assault or discrimination claims.
“I would say [Trump's revocation] definitely sends a certain type of message about prioritizing gender and fairness, and also the processes by which we address those,” said Ara Wilson, associate professor of gender, sexuality and feminist studies.
The Obama order’s requirement that firms provide wage reports was intended to protect workers against wage theft and gaps. It also prohibited forced arbitration clauses, which are known as “cover-up clauses” by critics and have been accused of keeping sexual harassment allegations out of sight and discouraging potential victims from speaking out. Trump's recent order wipes out Obama's ban on such clauses—which mandate that litigation concerning issues of sexual harassment be settled privately.
“We have an executive order that essentially forces women to pay to keep companies in business that discriminate against them, with their own tax dollars,” said Noreen Farrell, director of Equal Rights Advocates, to NBC on Trump's revocation. “It’s an outrage.”
Obama's original order was “an invitation to the corporate sector to pay attention to its own practices,” Wilson said. “Some companies did that and were actually quite shocked to find a gender disparity, so even if they’re well intentioned, they might now know it.”
Wilson said her major concern now is that the Trump administration seems to be discouraging information collection entirely.
“It’s just a really troubling stance to say we don’t want to encourage even the collection of data,” she said. “On one hand, Trump and people like him don’t believe that there are larger structural patterns in discrimination, but on the other hand they want to reduce the ability to get the data that shows we do.”
The 2014 order’s ban against forced arbitration clauses among contractors was brought to public attention last year by television commentator Gretchen Carlson, who received a settlement after accusing former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes of sexual harassment. In subsequent testimony before Congress, she publicized the problems with forced arbitration.
“If Ms. Carlson had followed Mr. Ailes’s reading of her contract, her colleagues might never have learned that she was fighting back,” wrote Senators Richard Blumenthal, Dick Durbin and Al Franken. “They might never have followed her example; Roger Ailes might never have been exposed; and Fox News might never have been forced to change its behavior. Decades of alleged abuse—harassment that should disgust and astound any reasonable person—could have been allowed to continue.”
Wilson explained that Trump's order focuses on protecting businesses from litigation.
"He’s interested in expanding the license of businesses to do what they think they need to do to be profitable," she said.
Overall, Wilson noted that she is concerned about the current administration's discourse regarding issues of sexual assault.
“The kind of conversations that were confined to specific media and specific audiences are being aired more publicly,” she said. “Some of the people on mainstream news shows now, some of the people interviewed or some of the people appointed to government hold views that, until recently, most of us would have considered incredibly problematic.”
However, Trump has also spoken out for increasing women's empowerment.
“Only by enlisting the full potential of women in our society will we be truly be able to make America great again,” Trump recently said at a March 29 Women’s Empowerment Panel.
Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, is also scheduled to attend a summit on the economic empowerment of women in Berlin—at the invitation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Wilson remains skeptical of the Trump administration's positions.
“The policies of this administration over the next four years will not be good for the majority of women,” she said.
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