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Maricia Woodham Bio
Maricia Woodham is a Supervisory Administrative Judge in the Commission’s Washington Field Office. Judge Woodham joined the EEOC in 2008 as a Senior Trial Attorney in the Birmingham District Office. While in this role, she was instrumental in litigating several class cases, including EEOC v. Jack Marshall Foods, Case No. 1:09-cv-0160-WS-N, which involved 19 female employees, including at least three who were teenagers at the time of the alleged sexual harassment, resulting in a $1,052,000 settlement and significant remedial relief. She also litigated EEOC v. EPI Advanced LLC, 3:09cv0010a-SA-SAA, where the Commission alleged that the Defendants subjected a class of female employees at its Sherman, Mississippi location to a hostile work environment based on gender.
Judge Woodham joined the ranks of the Commission’s administrative judges in January 2011 and transferred to the Washington Field Office in the Fall of 2014. Prior to joining the EEOC, Judge Woodham was actively engaged private practice in Montgomery, Alabama, focusing on employment discrimination and civil rights. Judge Woodham served as the Racial Justice Fellow for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights in Boston, Massachusetts from 2000-2005. She was instrumental in the filing of a class action lawsuit on behalf of the Massachusetts Association of Minority Law Enforcement Officers and 10 former officers who alleged that a yearly hair drug test was discriminatory because black officers’ hair texture makes them more susceptible to testing positive. The case moved through federal district and appeals courts over the years and in 2019, almost 17 years after the first charge of discrimination was filed, the Federal Court of Appeals for the First Circuit upheld a decision that found hair testing is biased against people of color. Judge Woodham is a former adjunct professor of legal writing at Franklin Pierce Law Center (currently the University of New Hampshire College of Law) in Concord, New Hampshire. She is also a member of the Georgia, Alabama, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire Bar Associations and various civic organizations.
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D'Ontae Sylvertooth Bio
D’Ontae D. Sylvertooth, who is of counsel to Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart PC, is an experienced employment law attorney with more than a decade-long career in the federal government, including the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Navy, and the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia. D’Ontae has litigated complex employment matters, including sexual harassment, discrimination, federal whistleblower, and Bivens claims. He has handled matters arising under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA), the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Contract Disputes Act, and the Whistleblower Protection Act. He has represented clients before federal courts and administrative tribunals such as the EEOC and the Merit Systems Protection Board.
Before becoming an attorney, D’Ontae was a federal investigator for the EEOC, where he was responsible for investigating charges of discrimination and making recommendations to the commission about the disposition of such investigations. D’Ontae then began practicing in private practice focusing on advice and counsel and employer-side litigation. D’Ontae leverages these experiences to advise and counsel employers on a wide range of employment-related matters and defend claims before administrative agencies and state and federal courts.
D’Ontae frequently conducts training in harassment, sexual harassment, a respectful workplace, and other aspects of equal employment opportunity and affirmative action. He also frequently conducts internal investigations relating to discrimination, harassment, sexual harassment, and other alleged misconduct.
D’Ontae is a member of the District of Columbia, Maryland, and New Mexico bars, and is admitted to appear before various federal courts. He earned his JD, cum laude, from the University of New Mexico, an MPA, magna cum laude, from Old Dominion University, and a BS, cum laude, from Old Dominion University.
