The federal agency responsible for enforcing workplace anti-discrimination laws took a major step Tuesday toward eliminating a longstanding requirement that employers annually report data on the race and sex of their workforce.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, currently led by Republican appointees, voted 2-1 to move forward with a proposed rule that would end so-called EEO-1 reporting — a practice that has been in place since 1966. Under the current system, companies with 100 or more employees must submit this demographic information each year.
The proposal would also do away with similar reporting obligations for labor unions, state and local governments, and public schools. However, a separate federal requirement that employers maintain such records internally would remain in effect.
For decades, the EEOC and its state-level counterparts have relied on this data to investigate discrimination claims brought by individual workers and to identify companies that may be engaging in broader patterns of discriminatory behavior. The agency also makes aggregated, anonymized versions of the data publicly available on its website.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, appointed by Republican President Donald Trump, argued that categorizing employees by race and sex can itself promote discrimination — including against majority groups like white workers and men.
“The EEO data reports stand in direct tension with (federal law’s) requirement that employment practices be colorblind,” Lucas said in a written statement.
The move fits within the Trump administration’s broader push to target diversity, equity and inclusion programs that Lucas has characterized as unlawful.
Tuesday’s vote opens the door for the proposal to be formally published, which will launch a public comment period. The rule could be made final before the end of the year. Annual EEO-1 reports are typically due on September 30.
Kalpana Kotagal, the commission’s only Democratic member, cast the dissenting vote. She warned that ending the data collection would hamper the agency’s ability to do its job and send the wrong signal to both workers and employers about the value of civil rights protections in the workplace.
“These efforts should be seen for what they are: an attempt to weaken equal employment opportunity, and to undermine progress for women and historically marginalized communities,” Kotagal said.
Kotagal also predicted that a future Democratic administration would likely restore the reporting requirement, and she urged employers to continue using the data they are already required to keep in order to monitor their own compliance with anti-discrimination laws.
Civil rights organizations were quick to condemn the proposal, arguing it would give the commission political cover to weaken protections for workers.
“Eliminating data about the demographics of the workforce not only makes discrimination harder to identify and address; it also makes it easier for the EEOC to justify enforcement priorities driven by politics rather than facts,” said Katie Sandson, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center.
During the Obama administration, the EEOC had actually expanded the reporting requirements to include pay data broken down by race and sex. That expansion faced strong opposition from business groups and was ultimately rolled back during Trump’s first term in office.
Business groups have historically pushed back against EEO-1 reporting, calling it burdensome with limited practical benefit. The EEOC said Tuesday that scrapping the requirements would save U.S. employers an estimated $275 million per year and reduce the agency’s own operating costs by $4 million annually.
