Karen Ortiz
Administrative Law Judge
Department of Labor
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (NY District Office)
“Who is this freedom fighter bringing on the fire?” wrote one Reddit user commenting on Ortiz’s fiery push-back against Trump’s anti-trans directive.
Karen Ortiz has become something of a folk hero to fellow federal workers after blasting the EEOC’s leadership for caving to Trump’s Executive Order 14168, which dictates that the feds will only recognize two biological sexes. “I was seething,” Ortiz told NPR about the policy directive.
The commission’s Acting Chair Andrea Lucas had quickly amplified Trump’s order via a press release, and directed employees to pause LGBTQIA+ discrimination cases, particularly for transgender workers. (The EEOC ultimately dropped six of its own pending lawsuits.)
Ortiz refused to stay quiet about the regressive anti-transgender policy. “I think about the trans people, particularly, that walk through life in this country every day, being vilified, and they keep on keeping on. And how cowardly would it be for me not to speak up on their behalf?” Ortiz stated. That’s when she sent her first email urging non-compliance, copying all 185 administrative judges in the New York office. Her all-caps subject line read: THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
“It's time for us to embody the civil rights work we were hired to do and honor the oath to the Constitution that we all took,” she urged her colleagues.
When that email was deleted, she shot off another to Acting Chair Lucas, with a “reply all” note to more than 1000 colleagues. Playing off DOGE’s “Fork in the Road” offer for federal employees to take a severance deal en masse, her subject line was: A Spoon is Better than a Fork.
“You are not fit to be our chair, much less hold a license to practice law,” she wrote to Lucas, declaring, “I will not compromise my ethics and my duty to uphold the law. I will not cower to bullying and intimidation. If, upon reflection, you feel like now would be a good time to take a vacation and resign from your position, please reply all to this email and put, I'd like to occupy Mars in the subject line. We will take this as notification that you are resigning your position as Acting Chair. P.S. Happy Black History Month, Sincerely Karen M. Ortiz.”
Her note went viral across Reddit and Bluesky, and for many, was a welcome sign of resistance to Trump’s massive firings and targeting of marginalized workers. “An American Hero,” wrote one user on Reddit, where her letter got 10,000 upvotes. “I wish I had her courage,” wrote another.
Ortiz has been manifesting her leadership for years, having been a federal worker for 14 years and at the EEOC for six. She fiercely believes in the agency’s mission to prevent and remedy unlawful employment discrimination and advance equal opportunity for all. Ortiz cites the influence of her Puerto Rico-born parents and their experience in the civil rights movement as models for her own concerns about justice. She got her undergrad degree from Columbia University and law degree at Fordham. “It’s in my DNA,” she said about taking a stand. “I will use every shred of privilege that I have to lean into it.”
In May 2025, Ortiz was placed on administrative leave pending removal from her job for “profoundly unprofessional" conduct. She had been called out, though not by name, in an earlier Trump executive order intended to make it easier to fire “bureaucrats” who defy presidential policies.
None of that is stopping her or shutting her up. Ortiz maintains that her actions are protected “whistleblower” activity, and she is working with legal counsel and her union to defend herself against any professional repercussions. “Honestly, I'm not scared of Elon Musk or Donald Trump,” Ortiz says of the Trump camp. “I'm just not. Because they want you to be scared. That's what bullies do.”