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Proposed NRO Clause Would Require Broad Disclosure -- Comments Due Tomorrow

Client Alert | 1 min read | 02.12.04

The proposal of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) to add a new standard clause to its contracts that would provide that "contractors and their employees, agents, representatives, subcontractors, and employees of subcontractors shall report to the NRO Inspector General (IG) or General Counsel any and all possible violations of federal criminal law or illegal intelligence activities of which they become aware during performance under an NRO contract," make all relevant records and employees available to the IG (failure to do so grounds for default termination), and flow the clause down to subcontractors raises obvious and serious policy issues. The request for comments are due tomorrow, February 13, despite only being published on February 4, on the NRO website, where the full text of the proposed clause is available.

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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].”...

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