A federal district court should order Hyundai to explain why it cannot comply with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s request for information in an ongoing investigation of alleged anti-American discrimination, the agency said in a lawsuit filed Thursday. According to the filing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, the probe originated from a commissioner’s charge filed by former Chair Charlotte Burrows in 2024. The allegations state that since 2023, the ENG America division of Hyundai refused to hire or promote non-Korean workers for operations situated in Alabama and Georgia.
The behavior under dispute breaches Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bars employment discrimination on the basis of national origin. The EEOC served Hyundai with a subpoena in February; in response, the automaker submitted a petition seeking to revoke or alter that subpoena. The EEOC partially denied the petition the following May and issued a new compliance deadline in June.
Investigation Details
As per court filings, the requested data encompassed all current and former staff at Hyundai’s Alabama and Georgia sites beginning on January 1, 2020. The commission labeled Hyundai’s June reply to the request as “deficient,” claiming the company only provided data covering the period from January 2023 to the present.
The EEOC also asserted that Hyundai failed to provide data for specific requested categories, including hire date, termination reason, nationality, and specific pay details. Hyundai informed the agency it could not obtain certain data, such as employee nationality, via its BambooHR system. However, the EEOC argued that Hyundai could secure such data through other means, like its responses to mandatory employment forms filed with the Department of Homeland Security.
Regulatory Agenda
The filing comes at the same time that the commission has made national origin discrimination a prominent part of its regulatory agenda. Under Chair Andrea Lucas, the commission has emphasized enforcement against anti-American bias; Lucas recently posted a public video to social media platforms urging workers to file anti-American discrimination charges.
Hyundai’s operations in the South have drawn scrutiny from various federal agencies in recent years, including a 2024 lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Labor alleging that Hyundai and an Alabama supplier illegally jointly employed a 13-year-old to manufacture auto parts. Litigation regarding this case is currently ongoing.
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