The case, which centers on allegations that Workday’s AI-powered screening tools disadvantaged applicants based on race, age, and disability, has become a proving ground for a question California regulators already answered on their own: when an algorithm makes or influences an employment decision, the employer, and often the vendor behind the tool, can be held responsible if that decision discriminates.

That answer is now incorporated in the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) itself. Since October 1, 2025, new regulations from California’s Civil Rights Council have established that using artificial intelligence or an automated decision system does not change who is liable when a hiring, promotion, or termination decision turns out to be discriminatory.

What Counts as an Automated Decision System Under FEHA

The regulations define an Automated Decision System, or ADS, broadly: any computational process, including one built on artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithms, or other data processing techniques, that makes a decision, or helps a human make one, regarding an employment benefit. That definition sweeps in far more than resume-screening software. Under the regulations, an ADS can include:

• Tools that screen resumes or applications for particular terms, keywords, or patterns;
• Video interview platforms that analyze a candidate’s facial expressions, word choice, or vocal tone;
• Computer-based tests, games, or puzzles used to predict skill, aptitude, or reaction time;
• Systems that direct job advertisements to specific demographic groups while excluding others; or
• Productivity or behavioral scoring tools used to evaluate current employees for discipline, promotion, or termination.

Critically, the rules apply even when a human makes the final call. If an algorithm narrows the applicant pool, ranks candidates, or flags an employee for review, and that output shapes or influences a subsequent human decision, the ADS is part of the legal analysis. An employer does not avoid liability simply because a person clicked the final button.

Employers Cannot Point to Their Vendor to Avoid Liability

One of the most significant changes in the regulations is how they treat third-party vendors. Many employers using AI hiring tools did not build those tools themselves, they licensed them from outside companies that specialize in applicant screening, video assessment, or workforce analytics. The regulations close off the argument that responsibility for a discriminatory outcome belongs solely to the vendor.

Under the amended rules, a vendor performing recruitment, screening, or similar functions on an employer’s behalf can be treated as the employer’s agent for purposes of FEHA liability. That means both the employer that deployed the tool and the company that built it may face exposure when the tool produces discriminatory results. 

This mirrors the theory that has kept the Workday litigation alive: courts have found it plausible that a company providing algorithmic hiring services to thousands of employers can be treated as each of those employers’ agent, exposing the platform itself to direct liability alongside its customers.

Recordkeeping and Bias Testing Now Carry Legal Weight

The regulations also impose a four-year recordkeeping requirement covering ADS-related data, including the criteria a tool used to evaluate candidates, the scores or rankings it produced, and any bias testing performed on the system. Employers are not required to conduct bias audits, but the regulations make it relevant whether an employer tested its tools for discriminatory impact, and how thoroughly, in defending a discrimination claim. 

An employer with no testing record and no documentation of how its ADS reached its outcomes will have a harder time defending a claim than one that can show it looked for bias and acted on what it found.

For employees and applicants, this recordkeeping requirement matters because it means the evidence of how an algorithm reached a decision relating to their employment should exist and be preserved. That evidence often becomes available only after a complaint is filed or a lawsuit is underway, which is one reason early legal advice matters in these cases.

What This Means If You Believe an Algorithm Discriminated Against You

If you were screened out of a job, denied a promotion, or terminated based in part on an automated scoring tool, and you believe race, age, disability, gender, religion, or another protected characteristic played a role in that outcome, you may have a claim under FEHA, regardless of whether the discrimination was intentional. The law treats a biased algorithm the same way it treats a biased manager: if the practice produces a disparate impact on a protected group, it can be unlawful even without proof that anyone meant to discriminate.

Speak to an Employment Attorney at Keller Grover

If you suspect that an automated hiring or evaluation tool played a role in an unfair employment decision, an employment violations attorney at Keller Grover can help you understand your rights and evaluate whether the facts support a FEHA claim. Contact our office today to discuss what happened.

The post California’s New FEHA Regulations Put Employers on the Hook for AI Hiring Bias appeared first on Keller Grover.

Both of those limits changed on January 1, 2026. Senate Bill 642, which Governor Gavin Newsom signed in October 2025, amends Labor Code § 1197.5 to extend the time workers have to sue, allow recovery for up to six years of underpayment, and define wages to include nearly every form of compensation an employer provides. Each change looks modest alone. Together, they can multiply the value of an equal pay claim.

California’s Long Effort to Close the Pay Gap

California’s Equal Pay Act has been amended repeatedly over the last decade. The 2015 Fair Pay Act replaced the “equal work” standard with “substantially similar work” and eliminated the requirement that comparators work at the same establishment. Later amendments added race and ethnicity as protected categories, barred employers from relying on salary history, and, in 2022, required pay scales in job postings.

SB 642 continues that trajectory. It also replaces the phrase “opposite sex” with “another sex,” which extends the statute’s protection to nonbinary and transgender workers and broadens the pool of employees who can serve as comparators.

From Two or Three Years to Six

Under prior law, a worker had two years to bring an Equal Pay Act claim, or three years if the employer’s violation was willful. The same window generally limited how much back pay the worker could recover. Plaintiffs sometimes paired their claims with the Unfair Competition Law to reach back four years for restitution, but that remedy is narrower.

SB 642 sets a single three-year filing deadline for every claim, regardless of willfulness. The statute also specifies that a claim accrues when an unlawful pay decision or practice is adopted, when a worker becomes subject to it, or each time the worker is affected by it. In other words, every paycheck reflecting a disparity starts the clock again. Once a timely claim is filed, the worker may recover for the entire period the violation continued, up to six years.

For an employee whose gap began with a lower starting salary and carried through each raise, that can mean recovering most of the loss rather than a fraction.

Now, “Wages” Means Total Compensation

The Equal Pay Act previously prohibited unequal “wage rates” without defining the term. Employers could argue that only the base salary or hourly pay counted. SB 642 closes that argument by defining wages to include salary, overtime, bonuses, stock, stock options, profit sharing, life insurance, vacation and holiday pay, allowances, travel reimbursement, and benefits. The definition follows the federal Equal Pay Act standard, but it now appears expressly in California’s statute.

In many workplaces, and in technology and finance in particular, base salary is only part of what an employee earns. Discretionary bonuses and equity grants are often where the widest disparities appear, because they are set with less structure and less scrutiny than salary bands.

How the Changes Compound in a Damages Model

Consider a hypothetical engineer whose male colleagues doing substantially similar work earn $8,000 more in base salary, $4,000 more in annual bonus, and $15,000 more in yearly equity grants.

Under a narrow reading of the prior law, with a two-year recovery window limited to base salary, her claim would be worth $16,000 in back pay, or $32,000 with liquidated damages. 

Under SB 642, her recoverable underpayment is $27,000 per year across six years, or $162,000. Because the Equal Pay Act awards an equal amount as liquidated damages, plus interest, her potential recovery exceeds $324,000 before attorney’s fees. That is more than ten times the prior figure, with no change to the underlying facts.

In a class or representative action, those figures scale across every affected worker. Including equity also introduces questions that did not arise when damages were measured in salary alone, such as whether a stock award should be valued at grant, at vesting, or at current market price, and how to account for awards that were forfeited when an employee left. For companies whose stock has appreciated, the valuation method alone can change a class-wide damages figure by millions of dollars.

Class treatment still has limits. In 2022, a California court decertified a pay equity class against Oracle covering more than 3,000 women in 125 job classifications, finding it would be unmanageable at trial. Employers will likely argue that adding bonus and equity comparisons makes classes even harder to manage. Plaintiffs will respond that compensation systems applied company-wide are well-suited to class-wide statistical analysis.

What Workers Should Do Now

Employees who suspect they are paid less than coworkers doing similar work should look beyond base salary. Bonus letters, equity grant statements, vesting schedules, and benefits summaries are all relevant under the amended law. Workers can also request the pay scale for their current position, and California law prohibits retaliation against employees who discuss or ask about pay.

Because the six-year recovery period depends on filing within three years of the most recent disparity, waiting can reduce what a worker can recover.

Talk to an Employment Attorney About a Pay Disparity

If you believe you have been paid less than a colleague of another sex, race, or ethnicity for substantially similar work, including through smaller bonuses or equity awards, you may have a claim under the California Equal Pay Act. The employment attorneys at Keller Grover represent California employees in pay discrimination matters and can help you evaluate your compensation history and your options. Contact our legal team today to schedule a consultation.

The post SB 642 and the Six-Year Back-Pay Lookback: Exponential Pay Equity Exposure for California Employers appeared first on Keller Grover.

That scenario was at the center of a July 2025 enforcement action by the California Attorney General. HCA Healthcare and its staffing subsidiary agreed to pay $1.53 million to California, part of a $2.9 million settlement with California, Colorado, Nevada, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 

The states alleged that HCA required new nurses to complete its StaRN residency program and then billed them for a prorated share of its cost if they left before two years. Three months later, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 692, which bans most arrangements of this kind for contracts entered on or after January 1, 2026.

California Already Banned Non-Competes. TRAPs Were the Workaround.

Business and Professions Code § 16600 has long voided contracts that restrain a person from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business. California courts have applied it to strike down non-compete agreements for decades, and the Legislature strengthened it in 2024 by making it unlawful for employers to enter or attempt to enforce void non-competes, regardless of where the contract was signed.

Training repayment agreement provisions, commonly called TRAPs, accomplish much of what a non-compete does without mentioning competition at all. An employer does not tell a worker she cannot leave. It tells her that leaving will cost her money she may not have. For workers early in their careers, that demand can make changing jobs impossible, the very effect § 16600 was written to prevent.

Before AB 692, these agreements were not automatically unlawful. In USS-POSCO Industries v. Edwards (2003), a California appellate court enforced a prorated training repayment agreement against a departing employee, finding that the training was voluntary and gave the employee a skill he could take elsewhere. Workers had to litigate each agreement individually. AB 692 replaces that case-by-case fight with a statutory rule.

Meanwhile, the federal effort to address the same problem stalled. The Federal Trade Commission’s 2024 rule banning most non-competes was set aside by a federal court in Texas, and in September 2025, the FTC dropped its appeal. With no national rule in place, California moved to close the gap on its own.

What AB 692 Prohibits

AB 692 added § 16608 to the Business and Professions Code and § 926 to the Labor Code. Employers may not include in an employment contract, or require a worker to sign as a condition of employment, a term that does any of the following:

• Requires the worker to pay an employer, training provider, or debt collector for a debt if the worker’s employment ends;
• Allows the employer or a collector to begin or resume collecting a debt, or end a period of forbearance, when the worker separates;
• Imposes a penalty, fee, or cost for leaving, such as a quit fee, a replacement-hire fee, reimbursement of visa or immigration costs, or liquidated damages.

“Debt” is defined broadly and includes money, personal property, and the costs of training, education, and employment. The statute declares that any contract violating § 16608 is a restraint on trade that is void under § 16600, which places TRAPs squarely within the same legal category as non-competes.

The law covers prospective employees and job training participants as well as current employees, and it applies to affiliates and third parties acting for an employer.

The Exceptions Are Narrow

AB 692 permits a small number of repayment arrangements, and each comes with strict conditions.

Sign-on bonuses are not banned outright, but an employer may only recover an upfront, discretionary bonus that is not tied to job performance if the repayment terms appear in a separate agreement, the worker is told of the right to consult an attorney and given at least five business days to do so, the retention period does not exceed two years, and repayment is prorated and interest-free. The worker must also be offered the option to defer the bonus until the retention period ends, and repayment can be triggered only by the worker’s own resignation or a termination for misconduct.

Tuition repayment is allowed only for a transferable credential, such as an accredited degree, that is not required for the worker’s current job. The agreement must be separate and apart from the employment contract, state the repayment amount up front, cap it at the employer’s actual cost, prorate it, and bar repayment if the employer terminates the worker for any reason other than misconduct.

Mandatory, job-specific training programs like the one in the HCA case do not fit either exception.

What Workers Can Do

Section 926 gives workers a private right of action. A worker, or a worker representative acting for similarly situated workers, can recover actual damages or $5,000 per worker, whichever is greater, along with injunctive relief and attorney’s fees and costs.

AB 692 applies only to agreements entered on or after January 1, 2026. Workers who signed a repayment agreement before that date are not left without options, however. Those agreements can still be challenged under § 16600 and Labor Code § 2802, particularly where the training was required for the job.

Speak With an Employment Attorney About a Repayment Demand

If your employer has demanded that you repay training costs, a signing bonus, relocation expenses, or a fee for leaving your job, or if you are being asked to sign an agreement that includes these terms, the demand may be unenforceable under California law. The employment attorneys at Keller Grover represent California workers in employment disputes and can review your agreement and explain your options. Contact our legal team today to schedule a consultation.

The post California’s “Stay-or-Pay” Ban (AB 692): The Death of TRAPs in California appeared first on Keller Grover.

On June 24, 2026, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach filed suit against Aetna in Shawnee County District Court, alleging that the insurer used money from the state employee health plan to benefit itself. The state is pursuing relief under the Kansas False Claims Act and seeks restitution, penalties, and disgorgement. Aetna denies the allegations.

What Kansas Alleges Aetna Did

Aetna is one of two third-party administrators (TPAs) for the Kansas State Employee Health Plan, which is self-funded. The state pays for its employees’ claims, and Aetna processes them, deciding how claims are priced, how much providers are paid, and whether payments are later reversed or recouped. The lawsuit focuses on two practices.

The first is known as cross-plan offsetting. According to the state, when Aetna overpaid a provider under a separate, fully insured plan, it recovered that money the next time the same provider treated a state employee. Aetna allegedly drew the full claim amount from the state plan, paid the provider only part of it, and kept the difference to cover its own loss on the other plan. The state alleges that neither it, the provider, nor the employee was told this was happening.

The second involves out-of-network claims. Kansas alleges that Aetna sent these claims through its National Advantage Program, which relied on outside repricing vendors to reduce what providers received, while charging the state fees that were not properly disclosed.

Why These Claims Are Being Brought Under the False Claims Act

Cross-plan offsetting is not a new allegation. In 2021, a federal court in New Jersey ruled in Lutz Surgical Partners v. Aetna that Aetna’s use of the practice violated ERISA because it breached the duty of loyalty owed to plan members and amounted to prohibited self-dealing. The U.S. Department of Labor has taken the same position, and in 2023, it reached a settlement with EmblemHealth that required the insurer to stop cross-plan offsetting and reimburse affected workers and families.

However, ERISA does not apply to health plans sponsored by state and local governments. Governmental plans are exempt from the statute, so a state cannot rely on ERISA’s fiduciary rules to recover money taken from its own employee health plan. State false claims laws fill that gap. When a TPA draws funds from a state-funded plan, each request is a claim on public money. 

If the TPA knows the amount it is drawing does not match what it paid providers, or it charges fees the contract does not allow, that claim may be false. Conduct that would be framed as a breach of fiduciary duty in a private employer’s plan can support False Claims Act liability when the government is the one paying.

New Jersey Has Already Recovered $100 Million on a Similar Theory

Kansas is not the first state to pursue a health plan administrator this way. In November 2025, New Jersey announced that Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey agreed to pay $100 million to settle allegations under the New Jersey False Claims Act. The state alleged that Horizon won a 2020 contract to administer the state’s employee health benefit programs, knowing that it could not comply with a contract term requiring it to charge the state the lower of the provider’s billed amount or the negotiated rate. 

The state further alleged that Horizon then overcharged it throughout the contract. Horizon characterized the matter as a contract dispute and denied any intentional wrongdoing.

The Horizon case began as a qui tam lawsuit filed by private whistleblowers in 2021. The federal government declined to intervene, but New Jersey investigated and pursued the case on its own. The whistleblowers received a portion of the state’s recovery, and the settlement is the largest non-Medicaid false claims resolution in New Jersey’s history.

Whistleblower Rights Depend on the State

Whether a whistleblower can file a qui tam lawsuit on behalf of a state depends on that state’s false claims law. Many states, including California and New Jersey, allow private individuals to file a complaint on the state’s behalf and receive a portion of what the state recovers. The Kansas False Claims Act does not include a qui tam provision, although it does protect employees from retaliation for reporting fraud. That is why the Kansas case was filed directly by the attorney general.

The California False Claims Act covers claims for payment from the state as well as from counties, cities, school districts, and other local government entities. Insurers and TPAs that administer health benefits for California public employers can face liability under the statute when they bill public funds improperly.

Who Is Positioned to Report This Conduct

The people most likely to see these practices work inside the claims payment process, including claims processors, payment integrity and overpayment recovery staff, finance and reconciliation employees, account managers who handle public employer clients, and employees of repricing vendors. Provider billing staff who see unexplained reductions or claw-backs on payments for public employee patients, and government benefits staff who review TPA invoices, may also be able to spot the problem.

Speak to a Whistleblower Attorney About Coming Forward

If you have knowledge of an insurer or TPA using a government-funded health plan’s money to cover its own losses, charging undisclosed fees, or billing a public employer in ways its contract does not permit, you may be able to file a qui tam lawsuit on the government’s behalf. A whistleblower attorney at Keller Grover can evaluate whether federal or state false claims laws apply to what you have seen, file the complaint under seal, and work to protect you from retaliation.

Contact our legal team at Keller Grover today to discuss your options.

The post Kansas Sues Aetna Under the State False Claims Act Over Its Handling of State Employee Health Plan Funds appeared first on Keller Grover.

Less than two months later, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) introduced legislation aimed at fixing that problem before it undermines one of the government’s most effective fraud-fighting tools.

The CFTC Whistleblower Protection and Program Improvement Act of 2026, also co-sponsored by Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), would raise the cap on the CFTC’s Customer Protection Fund from $100 million to $300 million, extend the office’s funding structure permanently, and close a bankruptcy loophole that has kept some whistleblowers from collecting awards they otherwise earned.

Why the CFTC Whistleblower Fund Is Running Short

The CFTC Whistleblower Program was created under the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 and has issued nearly $430 million in awards since making its first payout in 2014, tied to enforcement actions that recovered more than $3.7 billion in sanctions from wrongdoers in the futures, swaps, and derivatives markets. Those awards are paid out of the Customer Protection Fund, which is financed entirely through monetary sanctions the CFTC collects from the companies and individuals it takes action against.

The problem is a statutory cap. Once the fund reaches $100 million, any additional sanctions money gets redirected to the Treasury Department’s general fund instead of staying with the whistleblower program. As enforcement actions have grown larger and award payouts have kept pace, the fund has been drawing down faster than the capped collections can refill it. 

A temporary fix passed in 2021 created a separate account to keep the Whistleblower Office funded even when the main fund balance is low, but that provision was set to expire in September 2026.

What the New Legislation Would Do

The bill, introduced by Grassley and Fetterman, addresses both the funding shortfall and several longstanding complaints from whistleblowers and their attorneys about how the program operates. Among its provisions, the legislation would:

• Raise the Customer Protection Fund cap from $100 million to $300 million, giving the program room to grow alongside the size of CFTC enforcement recoveries.
• Make permanent the separate account that funds the Whistleblower Office’s operations, so the office is not left without resources if the main fund balance drops.
• Require the CFTC to process whistleblower award claims within a defined timeframe, addressing years of delay that whistleblowers have experienced between filing a claim and receiving a determination.
• Eliminate a court-created loophole that has prevented whistleblowers from collecting awards when the company involved in the underlying fraud later filed for bankruptcy.
• Require CFTC-regulated entities to notify their employees of their whistleblower rights.
• Strengthen anti-retaliation protections for people who report misconduct to the agency.

The bankruptcy provision addresses a gap that has drawn criticism from whistleblower advocates for years. Under current law, if a company settles with the CFTC and then declares bankruptcy before paying the sanction in full, a whistleblower can be denied an award tied to that case, even though the misconduct was real and the whistleblower’s information led directly to the enforcement action. Closing that gap would bring the CFTC program more in line with how other whistleblower statutes treat award eligibility.

The CFTC Whistleblower Program Covers Fraud Across Commodity and Derivatives Markets

The CFTC oversees the futures, options, and swaps markets that farmers, ranchers, energy producers, and financial institutions use to manage price risk on everything from corn and cattle to interest rates and currencies. Fraud in these markets can take many forms, including market manipulation, spoofing, Ponzi schemes built around commodity trading, and misrepresentations made to investors or customers about how their funds are being used.

Whistleblowers who submit original information to the CFTC that leads to a successful enforcement action recovering more than $1 million may be eligible for an award drawn from the Customer Protection Fund. The program also protects whistleblowers from retaliation by their employers and keeps their identities confidential throughout the process.

The program’s history includes some of the largest whistleblower payouts ever made by a federal agency, including a nearly $200 million award in 2021. But as the recent funding data shows, the size and frequency of awards depend directly on the health of the Customer Protection Fund, which is why this legislation matters to anyone considering coming forward with information about wrongdoing in these markets.

Speak to a Whistleblower Attorney About Reporting Commodities Fraud

If you have knowledge of fraud, manipulation, or other violations of the Commodity Exchange Act at your workplace or by a company you do business with, you may be eligible to report it to the CFTC and receive a portion of the government’s recovery if your information leads to a successful enforcement action. A whistleblower attorney at Keller Grover can help you evaluate your situation, prepare a report, and protect your rights throughout the process. Contact our office today to discuss what you have observed.

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Whittier College (“Whittier) has agreed to reinstate its women’s lacrosse team, have an independent Title IX expert conduct a gender equity review, and provide women with equal opportunities to participate in varsity sports to avoid a threatened Title IX sex discrimination class action. The school had announced it was eliminating the team on July 16, 2026. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination at all educational institution receiving federal funds.

The post Whittier College Agrees to Reinstate Women’s Lacrosse Team, Provide Women Equal Opportunities to Participate in Varsity Sports as Title IX Requires appeared first on Keller Grover.

Nineteen former members of UC Davis’s recently-eliminated female equestrian team filed a sex discrimination class action against the school today for discriminating against all its female student-athletes by depriving them of equal athletic financial aid in violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, seeks to make UC Davis pay close to $1,400,000 to its female athletes for depriving them of athletic financial aid and paying it to the male athletes instead in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the last two years for which information is publicly available. It also seeks damages for the athletic financial aid the women were and are being illegally deprived of in other years, including last year and this year (the amounts are not yet public), and a court order requiring UC Davis to comply with Title IX and provide equal athletic financial aid in the future.

Title IX, a federal civil rights law, prohibits sex discrimination in all educational institutions that receive federal funds. It requires schools to grant athletic financial aid to male and female athletes in dollar amounts proportional to their athletic participation rates.

UC Davis recently eliminated its women’s equestrian team and cited an “independent external assessment” by a consultant to support its decision. The assessment showed, however, that UC Davis was not providing women with their legally required proportional share of athletic financial aid. The class action is based on that data and on reports UC Davis provided and verified as accurate to the U.S. Department of Education under the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act.

“We were devastated when UC Davis eliminated the equestrian team, which was successful and thriving,” said Plaintiff and UC Davis senior Anna Donovan, an award-winning former equestrian team member. “Then, we were stunned even more when the school tried to defend its decision by releasing a consultant’s report showing it was depriving women athletes annually of hundreds of thousands of dollars in equal athletic financial aid.”

Former equestrian team members Avery Adamson, Sophia Blake, Addyson Brown, Mya Clader, Sabine Close, Katya Dundas, Chloe Fares, Margaret Franke, Carmen Gonzalez, Liliana Grosz, Laura Holliday, Hannah Janicki, Nicole Jimenez, Nicole Shroyer, Cavan Smith, Zadie Stack, Lola Sullivan, and Mylea Trimble are also Plaintiffs in the case.

“When UC Davis cut the equestrian team, it showed what it cared about was the money. So, this case focuses on the money,” said Arthur Bryant of Arthur Bryant Law, P.C., in Oakland, CA, lead counsel for the women. “UC Davis’s own numbers show it has been cheating its women athletes out of hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in equal athletic financial aid. That is clear and indisputable sex discrimination.”

Eric Grover of Keller Grover LLP in San Francisco, CA, co-counsel for the women, added, “This case isn’t complicated. It’s math. Based on the numbers UC Davis provided to the federal government, the math shows UC Davis is discriminating against its female athletes in violation of Title IX. We intend to hold it accountable.”

Robert Spencer of Keller Grover LLP is also co-counsel for the women athletes.

The post Female Athletes File Title IX Sex Discrimination Class Action Against UC Davis for Depriving Women of Equal Athletic Financial Aid appeared first on Keller Grover.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 is the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination at all educational institution receiving federal funds.

Shea Simpson, an incoming junior on the women’s lacrosse team said: “Two months ago, CLU announced it was eliminating our team. My teammates and I thought the decision violated Title IX, so we took action. We are proud that CLU has agreed to reinstate our team and make sure it is complying with Title IX. We are eager to get back on the field and keep building the team and program we love.”

The other women’s lacrosse team members who successfully fought for their rights are Christina Arellanes, Nicki-Jean Henderson, Tess Keenan, Marina Markrud, Alexa Miller, Susan Rosas, and Daphne White.

“These women deserve our praise and our gratitude,” said Arthur Bryant of Arthur Bryant Law, P.C., in Oakland, CA, lead counsel for the women. “They understood and confirmed what the history of Title IX has shown: if women want equality, they need to fight for it. CLU will be better for all because they did.”

Eric Grover of Keller Grover LLP in San Francisco, CA, co-counsel for the women, added, “CLU deserves our praise, too, for agreeing to do the right thing. It is going to reinstate the women’s lacrosse team and ensure its women athletes are receiving the equal opportunities to participate and equal treatment and benefits that Title IX requires.”

Benjamin Schenk of Schenk Law Firm in San Diego, CA, and Robert Spencer of Keller Grover LLP are also co-counsel for the women athletes.

The Title IX dispute stemmed from CLU’s announcement on April 28, 2026, that it was immediately eliminating the women’s lacrosse team, when the school was already offering male athletes more opportunities to participate in varsity sports.

On May 26, 2026, Bryant wrote a letter to CLU’s President on behalf of women’s lacrosse team members and informed him that the team’s elimination violated Title IX. The law prohibits

universities from eliminating women’s teams for which interest, ability, and competition are available unless “intercollegiate level participation opportunities for male and female students are provided in numbers substantially proportionate to their respective enrollments.” Bryant’s letter said CLU failed this test. CLU maintains it was not and is not violating Title IX and that it conducted the appropriate Title IX analysis before making any decisions that affected the women’s lacrosse team.

According to the most recent publicly available Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act (EADA) data that CLU submitted and verified to the U.S. Department of Education as accurate, CLU had a total undergraduate population of 2,248 in 2024-25, including 1,228 women (54.63%) and

1,020 men (45.37%). The school’s intercollegiate athletic teams had 615 athletes: 233 women

(37.89%) and 382 men (62.11%), creating a gap of 16.74% between the women’s undergraduate enrollment rate and their intercollegiate athletic participation rate. CLU is adding flag football, but, based on its EADA data, Bryant’s letter asserted that CLU needed to add many more women’s opportunities to comply with Title IX.

Instead of adding women’s opportunities, CLU had just announced it was eliminating the women’s lacrosse team, which it reported as including 15 women in 2024-25. As a result, the school’s athletic participation numbers and rates for women would decrease when they needed to increase. After the cuts, according to CLU’s most recent publicly available numbers, it would need to add approximately 164 opportunities for women to reach gender equity under Title IX. The female athletic participation gap would grow from 149 to 164, not including any new opportunities CLU was adding with flag football.

Bryant said he and his co-counsel would file a class action lawsuit in federal court against CLU for depriving women athletes and potential athletes of equal opportunities and treatment unless the school agreed to reinstate the team, hired a gender equity specialist they approved of, and made sure it complied with Title IX. The settlement agreement, announced today, provides that relief and avoids the need for the suit.

Under the agreement, CLU will immediately reinstate its women’s lacrosse team, hire an agreed gender equity specialist to conduct a gender equity review, and, to the extent necessary, develop and implement a gender equity plan to ensure that CLU’s intercollegiate athletic program complies with Title IX no later than the 2028-2029 academic year and beyond.

The women’s lacrosse team will continue competing in the upcoming academic year.

Contacts:

Arthur Bryant, arthur@arthurbryantlaw.com, 510-507-9972 Eric A. Grover, eric.grover@kellergrover.com, 415-321-8604 Benjamin Schenk, ben@schenklawfirm.com, 858-424-4444

The post California Lutheran University Agrees to Reinstate Women’s Lacrosse Team, Conduct Gender Equity Review, Ensure Compliance with Title IX appeared first on Keller Grover.

Less than two months later, Senators Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.) introduced legislation aimed at fixing that problem before it undermines one of the government’s most effective fraud-fighting tools.

The CFTC Whistleblower Protection and Program Improvement Act of 2026, also cosponsored by Senators Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), would raise the cap on the CFTC’s Customer Protection Fund from $100 million to $300 million, extend the office’s funding structure permanently, and close a bankruptcy loophole that has kept some whistleblowers from collecting awards they otherwise earned.

Why the CFTC Whistleblower Fund Is Running Short

The CFTC Whistleblower Program was created under the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010 and has issued nearly $430 million in awards since making its first payout in 2014, tied to enforcement actions that recovered more than $3.7 billion in sanctions from wrongdoers in the futures, swaps, and derivatives markets. Those awards are paid out of the Customer Protection Fund, which is financed entirely through monetary sanctions the CFTC collects from the companies and individuals it takes action against.

The problem is a statutory cap. Once the fund reaches $100 million, any additional sanctions money gets redirected to the Treasury Department’s general fund instead of staying with the whistleblower program. As enforcement actions have grown larger and award payouts have kept pace, the fund has been drawing down faster than the capped collections can refill it. 

A temporary fix passed in 2021 created a separate account to keep the Whistleblower Office funded even when the main fund balance is low, but that provision is set to expire in September 2026.

What the New Legislation Would Do

The bill, introduced by Grassley and Fetterman, addresses both the funding shortfall and several longstanding complaints from whistleblowers and their attorneys about how the program operates. Among its provisions, the legislation would:

• Raise the Customer Protection Fund cap from $100 million to $300 million, giving the program room to grow alongside the size of CFTC enforcement recoveries.
• Make permanent the separate account that funds the Whistleblower Office’s operations, so the office is not left without resources if the main fund balance drops.
• Require the CFTC to process whistleblower award claims within a defined timeframe, addressing years of delay that whistleblowers have experienced between filing a claim and receiving a determination.
• Eliminate a court-created loophole that has prevented whistleblowers from collecting awards when the company involved in the underlying fraud later filed for bankruptcy.
• Require CFTC-regulated entities to notify their employees of their whistleblower rights.
• Strengthen anti-retaliation protections for people who report misconduct to the agency.

The bankruptcy provision addresses a gap that has drawn criticism from whistleblower advocates for years. Under current law, if a company settles with the CFTC and then declares bankruptcy before paying the sanction in full, a whistleblower can be denied an award tied to that case, even though the misconduct was real and the whistleblower’s information led directly to the enforcement action. Closing that gap would bring the CFTC program more in line with how other whistleblower statutes treat award eligibility.

The CFTC Whistleblower Program Covers Fraud Across Commodity and Derivatives Markets

The CFTC oversees the futures, options, and swaps markets that farmers, ranchers, energy producers, and financial institutions use to manage price risk on everything from corn and cattle to interest rates and currencies. Fraud in these markets can take many forms, including market manipulation, spoofing, Ponzi schemes built around commodity trading, and misrepresentations made to investors or customers about how their funds are being used.

Whistleblowers who submit original information to the CFTC that leads to a successful enforcement action recovering more than $1 million may be eligible for an award drawn from the Customer Protection Fund. The program also protects whistleblowers from retaliation by their employers and keeps their identities confidential throughout the process.

The program’s history includes some of the largest whistleblower payouts ever made by a federal agency, including a nearly $200 million award in 2021. But as the recent funding data shows, the size and frequency of awards depend directly on the health of the Customer Protection Fund, which is why this legislation matters to anyone considering coming forward with information about wrongdoing in these markets.

Speak to a Whistleblower Attorney About Reporting Commodities Fraud

If you have knowledge of fraud, manipulation, or other violations of the Commodity Exchange Act at your workplace or by a company you do business with, you may be eligible to report it to the CFTC and receive a portion of the government’s recovery if your information leads to a successful enforcement action. A whistleblower attorney at Keller Grover can help you evaluate your situation, prepare a report, and protect your rights throughout the process. Contact our office today to discuss what you have observed.

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The case, which centers on allegations that Workday’s AI-powered screening tools disadvantaged applicants based on race, age, and disability, has become a proving ground for a question California regulators already answered on their own: when an algorithm makes or influences an employment decision, the employer, and often the vendor behind the tool, can be held responsible if that decision discriminates.

That answer is now incorporated in the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) itself. Since October 1, 2025, new regulations from California’s Civil Rights Council have established that using artificial intelligence or an automated decision system does not change who is liable when a hiring, promotion, or termination decision turns out to be discriminatory.

What Counts as an Automated Decision System Under FEHA

The regulations define an Automated Decision System, or ADS, broadly: any computational process, including one built on artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithms, or other data processing techniques, that makes a decision or helps a human make one regarding an employment benefit. That definition sweeps in far more than resume-screening software. Under the regulations, an ADS can include:

• Tools that screen resumes or applications for particular terms, keywords, or patterns;
• Video interview platforms that analyze a candidate’s facial expressions, word choice, or vocal tone;
• Computer-based tests, games, or puzzles used to predict skill, aptitude, or reaction time;
• Systems that direct job advertisements to specific demographic groups while excluding others; or
• Productivity or behavioral scoring tools used to evaluate current employees for discipline, promotion, or termination.

Critically, the rules apply even when a human makes the final call. If an algorithm narrows the applicant pool, ranks candidates, or flags an employee for review, and that output shapes or influences a subsequent human decision, the ADS is part of the legal analysis. An employer does not avoid liability simply because a person clicked the final button.

Employers Cannot Point to Their Vendor to Avoid Liability

One of the most significant changes in the regulations is how they treat third-party vendors. Many employers using AI hiring tools did not build those tools themselves, they licensed them from outside companies that specialize in applicant screening, video assessment, or workforce analytics. The regulations close off the argument that responsibility for a discriminatory outcome belongs solely to the vendor.

Under the amended rules, a vendor performing recruitment, screening, or similar functions on an employer’s behalf can be treated as the employer’s agent for purposes of FEHA liability. That means both the employer that deployed the tool and the company that built it may face exposure when the tool produces discriminatory results. 

This mirrors the theory that has kept the Workday litigation alive: courts have found it plausible that a company providing algorithmic hiring services to thousands of employers can be treated as each of those employers’ agent, exposing the platform itself to direct liability alongside its customers.

Recordkeeping and Bias Testing Now Carry Legal Weight

The regulations also impose a four-year recordkeeping requirement covering ADS-related data, including the criteria a tool used to evaluate candidates, the scores or rankings it produced, and any bias testing performed on the system. Employers are not required to conduct bias audits, but the regulations make it relevant whether an employer tested its tools for discriminatory impact, and how thoroughly, in defending a discrimination claim. 

An employer with no testing record and no documentation of how its ADS reached its outcomes will have a harder time defending a claim than one that can show it looked for bias and acted on what it found.

For employees and applicants, this recordkeeping requirement matters because it means the evidence of how an algorithm reached a decision relating to their employment should exist and be preserved. That evidence often becomes available only after a complaint is filed or a lawsuit is underway, which is one reason early legal advice matters in these cases.

What This Means If You Believe an Algorithm Discriminated Against You

If you were screened out of a job, denied a promotion, or terminated based in part on an automated scoring tool, and you believe race, age, disability, gender, religion, or another protected characteristic played a role in that outcome, you may have a claim under FEHA regardless of whether the discrimination was intentional. The law treats a biased algorithm the same way it treats a biased manager: if the practice produces a disparate impact on a protected group, it can be unlawful even without proof that anyone meant to discriminate.

Speak to an Employment Attorney at Keller Grover

If you suspect that an automated hiring or evaluation tool played a role in an unfair employment decision, an employment violations attorney at Keller Grover can help you understand your rights and evaluate whether the facts support a FEHA claim. Contact our office today to discuss what happened.

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