Story perspectives

Labor Department to Use AI, Faces Hundreds-Request Backlog

8/18/2026

Summary

Story summary

The U.S. Labor Department announced it will use artificial intelligence to triage reasonable accommodation requests.
An internal email said Civil Rights Center staff must review every request, limiting capacity and delaying decisions.
Employees report a backlog of hundreds of requests, with some cases pending since March 2025.
Experts Jodi Hershey and Michael Fallings warned the AI triage could sideline thin-documentation cases and raise privacy risks to medical records.

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Story summary

The U.S. Labor Department announced it will use artificial intelligence to triage reasonable accommodation requests.
An internal email said Civil Rights Center staff must review every request, limiting capacity and delaying decisions.
Employees report a backlog of hundreds of requests, with some cases pending since March 2025.
Experts Jodi Hershey and Michael Fallings warned the AI triage could sideline thin-documentation cases and raise privacy risks to medical records.