Critical Shifts:
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Federal Sex Discrimination Lawsuit: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a Title VII lawsuit against KLLM Transport Services and KLLM Driving Academy, alleging long-standing, systemic sex discrimination against female student drivers at its Texas and Mississippi academies.
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Unfair Training Delays and Single-Sex Accommodations: KLLM permitted male trainers to opt out of instructing female students—forcing women to endure longer wait times to begin training rather than providing dedicated single-sex sleeping quarters.
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Discriminatory Compensation Policies: The company refused to pay female trainees who chose to wait for a female instructor, while continuing to pay male trainees who waited for a male instructor.
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Mandatory Partner/Spouse Notification: KLLM imposed a unique, sex-based precondition requiring female trainees—and only female trainees—to notify their spouses or partners before being permitted to train with a male instructor.
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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, allegedly 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.
According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, KLLM subjected their female student drivers to overtly discriminatory training conditions because of gender 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.
