A Pakistani-American’s DOGE Nightmare

Zain Shirazi grew up in the surfing town of Huntington Beach, California. He and his younger brother were often “the only dark-skinned students” at school, he told me. But they never felt too out of place. Then 9/11 happened. Suddenly, they and their parents—Muslim immigrants from Pakistan—stuck out a lot more. Shirazi’s brother, who played football, was taunted by his teammates. Shirazi’s father, a bookkeeper and an accountant, struggled to get a full-time job. “He masked his accent with this country accent that’s not real at all,” Shirazi said. “My mom was, like, ‘You need to shave your mustache so you don’t look Muslim.’ ” Meanwhile, she supported the family with her earnings as a kindergarten teacher.

Shirazi stayed in California for college and law school, then became a public defender in Maryland. “I was ready to try something different,” he told me. He gave away his furniture and drove cross-country, with his cat, in a Ford Escape. Around 2src2src, he saw job postings at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that investigates discrimination in the workplace. Shirazi was close to his father and had always wanted to do some kind of “anti-discrimination work.” He applied for two different legal positions with the E.E.O.C. and never heard back. On his third try, in late 2src21, he was hired as an attorney-adviser. “I came in at a lower level just to get my foot in the door,” he said.

Shirazi was part of a small team that reported directly to Jocelyn Samuels, then the vice-chair of the five-member, bipartisan commission. He started in Washington, then relocated to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he and his wife bought a house. He did legal research and assisted Samuels with public presentations. By 2src23, he was drawing up guidelines on artificial intelligence that apprised employers of the kinds of discrimination that could result from “analyzing résumés through a black-box algorithm.” He also helped to implement a new law that insured “reasonable accommodations” for pregnant workers, such as additional breaks and specially tailored uniforms.

When Donald Trump was reëlected, Shirazi wasn’t too surprised. He saw that many people felt the system wasn’t functioning—that voting for Trump was a way to “burn it down.” He also suspected that the new President was “going to be bad” for his work at the agency. Samuels’s role as vice-chair would soon go to a Republican commissioner, who would likely have a more stringent interpretation of what constituted discrimination or harassment. But that was natural to any Presidential transition, and custom held that the Democratic commissioners would still finish out their terms. Samuels had been appointed through 2src26, and Shirazi had expected to work for her until then.

Very quickly, though, Shirazi began to worry. He spent the first night of Trump’s Presidency at his computer, trying to read all the executive orders. “The emotions were this mix of dread and, I think, some awe,” he told me. “They were prepared this time.” The order banning “gender ideology” called for the rescission of the E.E.O.C.’s guidance on harassment, which, among other things, outlines the rights of transgender employees, and which Shirazi had worked on. “Before that, our harassment guidance was quite outdated,” he told me. “It didn’t account for #MeToo or harassment on social media. The Administration is focussing on gender identity, but it covers more than that.” Rescinding the harassment guidance would create a lot of confusion. The document was full of real-life examples that had helped employers distinguish a stray joke from a pattern of racial bullying, or judge when private social-media posts crossed a line. Shirazi assisted Samuels in drafting public statements condemning that order, and several others. The Republican commissioner whom Trump named as acting chair, meanwhile, accused her own agency of having “betrayed women” for enforcing anti-discrimination laws on behalf of trans workers.

On Tuesday, January 28th, Shirazi woke up early and started reading his e-mail in bed. At the top of his in-box was a message that Samuels had forwarded from the White House. It faulted her for having “endeavored to impose an expansive and improper DEI agenda on America’s workplaces”; “enforcing the Biden Administration’s radical Title VII guidance”; “furthering a series of race-based initiatives that are themselves mired in racism”; and “criticizing recently issued Executive Orders.” Trump had fired her and another Democratic commissioner, eliminating the quorum necessary for the E.E.O.C. to fully function. “We’re fired,” Shirazi told his wife. She started to cry. He put on sweats and a hoodie and went to his home office. The room was decorated with a painting of B. B. King, a red rug, and a large cactus. All he could think was, Is this real? Is this happening today? His wife brought him coffee; his dog lay down next to him. He talked to his co-workers in Washington, who also expected to be fired. “I dropped a lot of F-bombs,” he said.

Shirazi downloaded his W-2 tax form and some other personal documents, as Samuels worked on another public statement—this time, about what had happened to her. Official word that Shirazi, too, had been fired would come at any moment, he felt. Worst case, we’ll have to sell the house, he thought. The couple’s mortgage payment was more than half of his monthly take-home pay. Health insurance was another worry. He had recently ordered a brace after injuring his knee, but the appointment to get it fitted was weeks away. He called the clinic and pestered them until they agreed to see him that afternoon.

At the end of the workday, there was still no word from the E.E.O.C. Then, at 6:31 P.M., he received a mass e-mail from the federal government’s human-resources agency, offering him “deferred resignation.” The subject line was “Fork in the Road,” echoing an e-mail that Elon Musk had sent Twitter employees when he took over that company and renamed it X. Resign now and take a generous paid leave or face the likelihood of being fired later, the e-mail read. It was a suspicious offer, Shirazi believed, but “I knew my termination was likely imminent.” He replied to the generic e-mail address:

Resign

This is my acceptance of the terms laid out below.