The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is proposing to halt its annual collection of employee demographic data and revoke a decades-old regulation that authorized employers to take voluntary steps to correct race and gender disparities in their workforces. EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas submitted the dual proposals to the White Office of Management and Budget for regulatory review, initiating a process that would erase two foundational pillars of federal workplace bias enforcement.
Companies with at least 100 employees have filed EEO-1 reports annually since 1966. The reports break down workforces by race, ethnicity, sex and job categories. The data allowed federal investigators to identify hiring and promotion gaps for people of color and women, leading to multibillion-dollar enforcement settlements over six decades.
Lucas told attendees at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit earlier this month that policies aimed at helping specific demographic groups violate Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 when they exclude others. “Regardless of what has happened before, the way to stop discriminating based on race is to stop discriminating based on race. The end. Full stop,” she said.
The 1979 regulation the agency now seeks to eliminate previously gave employers a legal pathway to implement mentoring programs and voluntary hiring targets. Chai Feldblum, who served on the commission during the Obama administration and the first Trump administration, said the guidelines showed employers how to consider race and gender legally. “This is the EEOC giving employers the roadmap of how they can take race and gender into account in a positive way and not violate the law,” she said.
The Supreme Court validated that approach in a 1979 ruling and expanded it to cover women in 1987. The resulting legal standard permits temporary affirmative action plans provided they do not “unnecessarily trammel the interests of white employees.” Feldblum noted that the court rulings remain binding law, but she expressed uncertainty about their long-term standing given the current composition of the bench.
Former EEOC general counsel Karla Gilbride said eliminating the routine data collection would severely complicate civil rights enforcement. “It’s one of the first things that you can look at as you’re trying to learn more,” she said. Without automatic access to demographic filings, investigators would need to subpoena records from each employer, making pattern-recognition far more labor-intensive.
Agency investigators relied heavily on EEO-1 data during a discrimination lawsuit against Bass Pro Shops filed in 2011. The filings revealed retail locations in counties with large Black and Latino populations had hired zero or very few workers from those groups. David Lopez, the agency’s general counsel at the time, said the demographic numbers gave investigators a legal basis to dig deeper into managerial conduct.
Bass Pro denied wrongdoing but settled the case for $10.5 million in 2017. The company agreed to appoint a diversity director and make good-faith efforts to recruit non-white candidates. Lopez emphasized the necessity of demographic tracking for identifying systemic bias, saying, “You can have a hunch, but there’s nothing like the cold, hard numbers.”
Lucas has defended the collection of specific demographic data in other contexts outside routine workforce reporting. Speaking at a Harvard conference in April, she justified an EEOC subpoena demanding the University of Pennsylvania produce contact information for Jewish employees amid an antisemitism probe. “There is no other way to protect victims of harassment and discrimination unless you collect information about them,” she said.
The university has refused to comply with the subpoena, arguing in court filings that the request echoes historical threats against Jewish communities. Lucas simultaneously warned employers in late 2025 against misusing demographic data to justify differential treatment in hiring or promotions. She alleged some companies have used the information to disadvantage white workers and men.
Court documents show the EEOC has accused Nike and The New York Times of discrimination against white employees and applicants. Both companies had previously published internal demographic data alongside public diversity goals following the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Lucas declined to name specific companies in recent interviews, citing standard investigative confidentiality rules.
Management consultants report widespread confusion among employers adjusting to the shifting enforcement priorities. David Cohen, a consultant who advises companies on equal opportunity compliance, said tracking demographics remains a standard business practice regardless of government mandates. “It’s like you’re driving a car without a dashboard,” Cohen said.
Cohen told clients that federal civil rights statutes have not changed despite the agency’s internal policy realignment. The EEOC typically begins its annual data collection window in late spring. There has been no official agency announcement regarding the 2026 reporting period.