Leadership1 publisher2 min readPublished
EEOC pairs a rejected applicant's account with a 1,900-to-12 field-job count against a Texas tree firm
Sequoias Tree Expert hired over 1,900 men for field jobs and employed no more than 12 women in them since 2022, the EEOC alleges in a Texas sex-bias suit. The counts come attached to one rejected applicant's charge, and together they have put the company's whole field hiring record before a federal court.
The Board Room · Leadership desk
What happened
- A woman with experience as a foreman, groundsman and trimmer applied for a groundsman job around February 17, 2025, after a man tied to a general foreman role there recruited her.
- That same day, according to the filing, the recruiter told her Sequoias had refused to hire her because of her sex.
- Around February 19, the company's HR manager offered her an office job instead and did not deny it when she said she had been refused for being female.
- On August 7, 2026, the EEOC found reasonable cause to believe Sequoias violated Title VII through discriminatory recruitment and hiring.
Compiled by The Board RoomSomething wrong?How this is made
Why it matters
- exposure Women who are told no field jobs are open never show up in an applicant log, so a clean applicant-flow record may not answer a lopsided hire count.
- cost A loss would put Sequoias' field hiring under a permanent injunction and court-ordered equal-opportunity programs, on top of backpay, compensatory and punitive damages.
- decision Once the agency finds cause, the employer has only weeks to choose between settling and defending a public suit that seeks company-wide remedies.
- precedent Construction, utilities and landscaping employers with similar sex ratios in field roles fit the enforcement profile HCAMag describes for this case.
Any field employer can pull the ratio at the center of this complaint from its own payroll. By the EEOC's counts, women were at most about 0.6% of the field workers tallied over four and a half years [2][3][1]. The complaint counts men hired and women employed, so that share is approximate [1].
The earlier count is the sharper one. From January 2022 until the company received notice of the charge on or about June 30, 2025, it hired no more than five women for field jobs, the complaint alleges [4]. That is fewer than 1.5 women a year, against an average of more than 400 men a year across the full period [4][5]. The wider tally of women runs to June 2026, about a year after notice, so hiring done while the charge was pending is counted too [3][6].
Counts alone did not bring this case. It began with one applicant's charge and the statements surrounding her rejection [5][6][7]. The complaint adds that the CEO told one or more employees, in words to that effect, that it is "unacceptable" to hire women into field positions [9]. The hire counts are what carry her rejection into a company-wide claim covering groundsman, trimmer, foreman and driver jobs [1].
A skeptic in a field trade would say few women apply for tree work, so a lopsided hire count proves little. The complaint answers through the applicant pool. It alleges the recruiter submitted women and men together in February 2025 and that only the men were hired [16][8]. It also alleges staff kept women from completing applications by telling them, falsely, that the company was not hiring for field roles [10]. The figures in the complaint, as reported, are hires and headcount by sex [2][3][4].
For an employer holding a charge now, the calendar is long at the start and short at the end. About 19 months passed between the application and the lawsuit [3]. Conciliation was declared failed 19 days after the cause finding, and the suit followed about five weeks later [13][2][7]. None of the allegations has been tested, and no court has made findings or rulings [14].
What to watch
- Sequoias' answer to the complaint, and whether it disputes the 1,900 and 12 counts or the alleged CEO remark.
- Whether the court lets the EEOC seek relief for women beyond the charging party, including those allegedly told field roles were not hiring.
- Whether further EEOC suits in construction, utilities or landscaping open with hire counts by sex in field roles.