DALLAS — KLLM Transport Services LLC, a nationwide trucking company, and its subsidiary, KLLM Driving Academy, Inc., which operate driver training academies in Lancaster, Texas and Jackson, Mississippi, violated federal law by subjecting female student drivers to sex discrimination through several unlawful policies and practices, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charged in a lawsuit announced today.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, KLLM subjected their female student drivers to overtly discriminatory training conditions because of sex since at least January 2021.This included adopting male trainers’ decisions to opt out of training female student drivers instead of providing separate single-sex sleeping quarters during training, a practice that forced women drivers to wait longer to start their training.

Additionally, KLLM refused to pay female student drivers who opted to receive instruction from female trainers while they waited for a female trainer to be available, but paid all other student drivers, including males who opted for a male trainer, who were waiting to start their training. KLLM also mandated that only female student drivers who were willing to receive driving instruction from a male trainer notify their spouses or partners as a precondition to start training, according to EEOC’s complaint.

“Rather than provide the female student driver’s single-sex sleeping quarters that protected their privacy and ensured equal employment opportunity, the employer here instead decided to adopt a series of sex-based discriminatory policies that treated women trainees worse than male trainees and disadvantaged them in their employment opportunities, which is unlawful disparate treatment,” said acting EEOC General Counsel Catherine Eschbach.

The type of conduct alleged in the EEOC’s complaint violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in employment. The EEOC filed suit (U.S. EEOC v. KLLM Transport Services LLC and KLLM Driving Academy, Inc., Case No. 3:26-cv-02590-E) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division after first attempting to reach a pre-litigation settlement through its administrative conciliation process.

EEOC Dallas District Office Director Travis Nicholson said, “Under federal law, all workers in the United States have a right to be given a fair opportunity to succeed based on their knowledge, skills and effort, not their sex. That fundamental principle applies to all aspects of their jobs, including training and other terms and conditions of employment.”

Acting EEOC Dallas Regional Attorney Ronald L. Phillips said, “Sex discrimination, whether in hiring, training or while on-the-job, continues to pose a significant barrier to female workers’ participation in historically male-dominated industries, including trucking. Those industries often provide excellent, long-term career prospects for workers, and the EEOC is firmly committed to ensuring that women have an equal opportunity to obtain and fully enjoy the benefits of those jobs.”

For more information on sex-based discrimination, please visit https://www.eeoc.gov/sex-based-discrimination.

The EEOC’s Dallas District Office has jurisdiction over a substantial part of Texas and parts of southern New Mexico.

The EEOC is the sole federal agency authorized to investigate and litigate against businesses and other private sector employers for violations of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. For public sector employers, the EEOC shares jurisdiction with the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The EEOC also is responsible for coordinating the federal government’s employment antidiscrimination effort. More information about the EEOC is available at www.eeoc.gov.