Biden Deletes Trump Again With Firing Of His Top Appointee

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President Joe Biden has fired Trump appointee Sharon Gustafson, who served as the general counsel for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and pursued right-wing priorities during her comparatively brief tenure. Biden originally requested Gustafson’s resignation, but she refused to take the step, no matter the change in leadership at the White House and the fact that other Trump appointees elsewhere in the government voluntarily stepped down.

In a letter addressed to Biden following his request for her resignation, Gustafson commented as follows:

‘Unless prevented from doing so, I intend to honor that commitment [to a four-year term]…. I have confidently given this advice to countless embattled clients over the last 25 years: hold your head high, do your best work, and do not resign under pressure. In solidarity with them, I will follow that advice…. I can only assume that my resignation would be followed by… suppression of our work promoting religious freedom.’

Conservatives like Gustafson have used the guise of so-called religious freedom to promote discrimination against LGBTQ individuals. She even led a lawsuit against the Kroger grocery chain after employees voiced complaints about wearing aprons sporting a rainbow-colored heart, which nodded to LGBTQ pride.

David Lopez, who served in Gustafson’s position during the Obama era, commented as follows, discussing the newly fired official:

‘One of the issues she made as her hallmark, was the issue of discrimination against religious minorities, the law requiring religious accommodation of beliefs. Some lawyers from the conservative Christian right view this right as a conflict with requiring nondiscrimination against LGBTQ people…. At the end of the day you serve at the pleasure of the president. I think the norm that was violated was that she decided to stay. I’ve never heard of that happening before.’

This firing is far from the only effort that the Biden administration has undertaken to undo some of the chaos of the Trump era. At the Defense Department, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently dismissed all members of all civilian advisory boards at the department in an effort to remove Trump appointees from the mix. On policy issues, the Biden administration has also ended federal funding for the southern border wall, moved to end the Trump administration’s so-called Remain in Mexico that forced asylum-seekers to wait in Mexico, and more.