Quick Hit: On March 26, 2026, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled “Addressing DEI Discrimination by Federal Contractors” (the “Order”) which mandates the inclusion of a new clause (the “Clause”) in all covered federal contracts and contract-like instruments prohibiting federal contractors from engaging in “racially discriminatory DEI activities.” The Order directs agencies
Rachel Edelson
Rachel Edelson is an associate in the Labor & Employment Law Department and a member of the Employment Litigation and Counseling groups.
Rachel advises employers across a broad range of labor and employment matters, with a particular focus on strategic advice and counseling. She provides practical, business-oriented guidance on employment issues, labor relations, and regulatory compliance. Rachel counsels employers on sensitive workplace and regulatory investigations involving allegations of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and policy violations. She represents employers in pre-litigation disputes, as well as in mediations and arbitrations. In addition to her employment counseling work, Rachel’s practice also includes representing employers in collective bargaining negotiations.
She has experience advising clients across a variety of industries, including sports, media and entertainment, higher education, nonprofits and cultural institutions, and financial services. Her pro bono work focuses on the arts, sex discrimination in education, and criminal justice reform.
Rachel received her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. During law school, she worked in the Domestic Violence Clinic and studied at Keio University in Tokyo and Facoltà di Giurisprudenza in Siena. Prior to law school, Rachel was a paralegal in Proskauer’s Labor Department. She earned her A.B. in Classics from Princeton University.
The Long Arm of FLSA Retaliation: Lessons from the Ninth Circuit’s Decision in Hollis
The Fair Labor Standards Act was one of the earliest American workplace laws to contain an explicit anti-retaliation provision. Modeled after the anti-retaliation provisions in other New Deal legislation, including the National Labor Relations Act enacted just three years prior, the FLSA’s original text in 1938 made it unlawful “for any person … to discharge…