US agency proposes ending racial and gender workforce data collection

Republican-led EEOC proposal to end workforce diversity reporting heads to public commentary amid sharp criticism.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the chief regulatory agency for enforcing US anti-discrimination laws, has proposed ending a decades-old requirement that US employers submit annual data on the racial and gender breakdown of their workforces.

In a 2-1 vote, the Republican majority advanced the proposal, which will now move to a 30-day public comment period before final approval of the measure. The commission is set to hold a public hearing for the measure on August 11.

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The reports, known as EEO-1, collect aggregate data of demographics rather than specific identification of workers. They are designed to help the federal government understand employment patterns and trends as well as identify any patterns of systemic discrimination.

For the last 60 years, the EEOC has required companies with at least 100 employees or federal contractors with at least 50 workers to submit this data. It is now collected by 73,000 different employers covering 50 million workers.

The agency argued that the requirement is no longer needed, pointing to the expense it imposes on employers, which it estimates at almost $275m for a programme that costs the EEOC $4m.

It also claimed that the act, despite being law for more than half a century, is inconsistent with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the provision that bars employers from discriminating against workers or job applicants on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin.

“They [the requirements] stand in direct tension with Title VII’s requirement that employment practices be colorblind. Collecting such data absent a specific allegation not only risks hindering effective enforcement but also raises constitutional concerns,” Andrea Lucas, chair of the EEOC, said in prepared remarks that she shared on LinkedIn.

Ending the enforcement measure was recommended in Project 2025, the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation’s wish list for US President Donald Trump’s policies. Despite denying ties to Project 2025 on the campaign trail, Trump quickly appointed authors to key positions across the government, including Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chair.

Critics have pushed back on Lucas’s allegations that the requirements hamper enforcement.

“This Administration purports to justify its efforts to roll back employment-related data collection and analysis by claiming that these activities lead employers to engage in quota or race-based hiring,” a coalition of former EEOC officials said in an open letter in May when the rule was first proposed. “But this is simply inaccurate and unsupported speculation, at odds with the ways in which this data is actually collected, managed, and used.”