1. Home
  2. |Insights
  3. |NISPOM Revised to Incorporate DSS and GCA Requirements

NISPOM Revised to Incorporate DSS and GCA Requirements

Client Alert | 1 min read | 08.08.18

On August 1, 2018, DoD published the National Industrial Security Program: Industrial Security Procedures for Government Activities (“Volume 2”), which finally replaces the 1985 Industrial Security Regulation much as the original National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual (NISPOM) had replaced the Industrial Security Manual applicable to contractors. Volume 2 prescribes security practices applicable to U.S. government activities and includes an extended discussion of facility security clearances (FCLs), including examples of documentation that sponsoring agencies can use to justify an FCL, an exception for continued FCL processing even if it cannot be completed in time to qualify the company for participation in a procurement action, and uniform criteria for identification of key management personnel for various business structures. Volume 2 also establishes detailed procedures for DSS oversight of contractor investigations of compromised information, DSS processing of limited access authorization, and DSS requirements for international security programs including foreign government and contractor access to U.S. classified information.

Insights

Client Alert | 3 min read | 06.12.26

DOJ Guidance Backs Away From Disparate Impact Liability

On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) issued a formal opinion concluding that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission’s (EEOC) existing interpretations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) disparate-impact liability, including the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), are unconstitutional. According to the opinion, EEOC’s prior interpretations contemplate liability based on disproportionately adverse effects alone, without regard to an employer’s likely intent, rather than treating disparate impact as an evidentiary mechanism to “smoke out” intentional discrimination. DOJ found that this approach functions as a “qualified racial-proportionality mandate” that places “a racial thumb on the scales, often requiring employers to evaluate the racial outcomes of their policies, and to make decisions based on (because of) those racial outcomes.” The opinion fulfills one mandate of Executive Order 14281, which rejected disparate-impact liability insofar as it “creates a near insurmountable presumption that unlawful discrimination exists wherever there are any differences in outcomes among different [demographic groups].”...