Reform the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures

Partially done

Printed page 73 3. Central Personnel Agencies

“Courts have agreed to review the consent decree if the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures setting the technical requirements for sound exams are reformed.”

What has happened

Jul 31, 2026 Partially done
The Guidelines were stripped of force in federal hiring but never reformed. On 2026-06-09 the Office of Legal Counsel opined that the Uniform Guidelines embrace an unconstitutional reading of Title VII and that their validation-study framework exceeds what the statute requires; OPM then removed every reference to UGESP from federal personnel regulations by interim final rule, effective on publication. Inside the executive branch that answers the Mandate's complaint — the technical requirements it says stand in the way of sound exams no longer bind federal selection procedures. It is partial because the Guidelines themselves are an EEOC regulation at 29 CFR part 1607 and remain on the books unamended: a Federal Register full-text search across all document types since 2025-01-20 turns up no EEOC action on part 1607. And the consequence the Quote is reaching for has not followed — no allowlisted record shows any court being asked to revisit the PACE consent decree.
- OPM interim final rule: Removal of References to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures in Federal Personnel Regulations
  Primary Executive branch Jul 31, 2026
- Office of Legal Counsel opinion: Constitutionality of Disparate-Impact Liability Under Title VII
  Primary Executive branch Jun 9, 2026

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27.

Shares the trail of #108 (done) but is a distinct ask: reform the Guidelines themselves so that the courts will reopen the PACE consent decree.

The Office of Legal Counsel opinion of 2026-06-09, Constitutionality of Disparate-Impact Liability Under Title VII, read on justice.gov. OPM’s rule summarizes it: OLC concluded that existing EEOC interpretations, “including UGESP, embrace an unconstitutional reading of Title VII”, and that UGESP’s validation-study framework “is inconsistent with Title VII’s business-necessity defense … because it imposes detailed and burdensome validation requirements beyond what Title VII requires.”
OPM’s interim final rule of 2026-07-31 strips UGESP out of 5 CFR parts 300, 330, 337 and 720, effective on publication. It is careful about its own limits: it does not remove the job-analysis requirement, the rational-relationship requirement, or the nondiscrimination language, and “does not alter agency obligations under Title VII”.
What has not happened. UGESP itself lives at 29 CFR part 1607 and is an EEOC regulation. A Federal Register search for the term “1607” filtered to the EEOC since 2025-01-20 returns one document, an unrelated proposed rule (“Removal of Reporting Requirements”, 2026-07-23). A full-text search for “Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures” across all document types since 2025-01-20 returns 12 documents; only the OPM rule and an OPM SES rule touch UGESP, the rest are Labor Department affirmative-action rescissions and Privacy Act notices. Nothing amends or rescinds part 1607.
No allowlisted record shows any court being asked to reopen the Luevano consent decree that ended the PACE examination.

Action: issue
Object: Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures / PACE consent decree
ID: 109