OPM strips the Uniform Guidelines from its regulations

The Office of Personnel Management published an interim final rule on 31 July 2026 removing references to the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures from the federal civil service regulations.¹ The Guidelines, at 29 CFR part 1607, are the 1978 adverse-impact and validation-study framework for employee selection; OPM states the amendments “conform OPM’s regulations to the Department of Justice, Office of Legal Counsel’s June 9, 2026, opinion finding the UGESP unlawful” (see OLC holds the EEOC’s disparate-impact rules unconstitutional).¹²³ The rule was effective on publication, with comments due 29 September 2026.¹

1. Four provisions lose the reference, and one is reserved. OPM amends § 300.103 “by removing the last sentence of paragraph (c),” the sentence requiring that employee-selection procedures meet the UGESP standards; strikes the citation to 29 CFR part 1607 from the category-rating provisions at § 330.213(d) and § 337.303(b); and “removes the advisory text in Sec. 720.206 stating that agency selection processes must be consistent with UGESP and reserves the section,” along with similar text in the Part 720 Appendix.¹ In the category-rating provisions the surviving requirement is that agencies “[d]efine each quality category through job analysis conducted in accordance with part 300 of this chapter.”¹

2. The predicate is an opinion, not a judgment. OPM recounts that OLC “concluded that existing EEOC interpretations, including UGESP, embrace an unconstitutional reading of Title VII insofar as they contemplate liability based on disparate effects alone,” and “concluded that UGESP’s validation study framework is inconsistent with Title VII’s business-necessity defense.”¹ Its authority to act on that basis is stated directly: “Executive branch legal interpretations issued by the President or the Attorney General are controlling on executive-branch employees,” citing Executive Order 14215.¹⁴ The predicate is an Office of Legal Counsel opinion rather than a judicial holding, and the chain from that opinion to binding regulatory change runs entirely inside the executive branch.

3. The comment period follows the rule into force. OPM invoked good cause under 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(B) “to issue this rule without prior notice and comment because prior notice and comment would be impracticable and contrary to the public interest,” reasoning that “leaving OPM regulatory text in place that incorporates, requires, or advises consistency with UGESP would create immediate confusion for Federal agencies administering employment practices.”¹ It also found good cause under § 553(d)(3) for immediate effect and noted the rule “relieves a restriction” under § 553(d)(1).¹⁵ Comments remain open for sixty days, and OPM says that after considering them it “may issue a subsequent final rule confirming, modifying, or withdrawing this interim final rule.”¹

4. OPM is careful about what it says is untouched. The rule “does not remove the job-analysis requirement in Sec. 300.103(a),” the rational-relationship requirement in § 300.103(b), the professionally-developed requirement, or “the nondiscrimination language in Sec. 300.103(c).”¹ Nor does it “alter agency obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, veterans’ preference laws, merit-system principles, prohibited personnel practice provisions under 5 U.S.C. 2301, or any other applicable Federal law.”¹ OPM writes that it “expects agencies to continue to use job-related, merit-based, and professionally sound selection procedures,” and that the rule “does not prohibit sound professional assessment practices.”¹ What changes is that the specific method of demonstrating that — UGESP’s adverse-impact analysis and validation studies — is no longer required by OPM regulation.¹