EEOC Votes to End 60-Year Workforce Demographic Data Collection
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted 2-1 on July 21, 2026, to propose rescinding the 60-year-old requirement that tens of thousands of private sector employers submit annual workforce demographic reports, a decision that marks one of the most consequential shifts in U.S. civil rights enforcement in decades.
The proposal, advanced by the agency’s Republican majority, targets the EEO-1 form — a standardized report that since 1966 has required companies with at least 100 employees (and federal contractors with at least 50 workers) to submit a yearly breakdown of their workforce by race, ethnicity, and gender across 10 job categories. The data covers more than 50 million employees and approximately 73,000 employers nationwide.
The Vote and What It Means
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas and the other Republican commissioner voted in favor of the rescission; Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the sole Democrat remaining on the commission, voted against. The proposal now enters a 30-day public commentary period, with a public hearing scheduled for August 11, 2026, before final approval can take effect.
According to AP News, Lucas argued that requiring companies to submit the annual reports risks encouraging discriminatory practices. “It may promote racial stereotyping at work, and it may encourage employers to engage in discrimination,” she said during a hearing ahead of the vote.
In prepared remarks shared on LinkedIn, Lucas further contended that the requirements “stand in direct tension with Title VII’s requirement that employment practices be colorblind,” as Al Jazeera reported.
Commissioner Kotagal strongly disagreed, warning that the move would cripple the agency’s enforcement capacity. “Today, the commission discusses whether to turn back time to a period before the civil rights movement, kneecapping its ability to protect workers,” she said.
A Cornerstone of Civil Rights Enforcement
Established shortly after the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the EEO-1 reporting requirement has been a cornerstone of federal anti-discrimination enforcement for six decades, surviving through 10 presidential administrations — both Republican and Democratic — until now. The EEOC has historically used the data to guide enforcement priorities, identify patterns of systemic discrimination, and inform investigations.
The EEOC estimates the reporting requirement costs employers approximately $275 million annually, while the program costs the agency $4 million. Lucas has argued this burden is unnecessary absent “any allegation, indication, or evidence of discrimination.”
However, as USA Today reported, critics warn that eliminating the data collection will blind the agency and the public to systemic discrimination. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies called the potential loss of data “one of the most consequential civil-rights reversals of this era,” writing that “data does not predetermine outcomes. It does not guarantee discrimination claims succeed. It just allows society to see.”
Broader DEI Rollback and Project 2025
The move is part of a broader Trump administration effort to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives across the federal government and private sector. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 blueprint explicitly recommended ending EEO-1 data collection. Despite Trump’s campaign denials of ties to Project 2025, he has appointed many of its authors to key positions.
Under Lucas, the EEOC has launched investigations into Nike’s diversity policies, sued a Coca-Cola distributor for allegedly excluding male employees from a women’s networking retreat, and sued the New York Times for allegedly discriminating against a white man passed over for promotion — all while dismissing cases on behalf of transgender employees.
Katie Sandson, senior counsel at the National Women’s Law Center, described the vote as a “grave attack on civil rights enforcement,” according to the NWLC press release. “Today’s vote opens the door for discrimination to be swept under the rug.”
Historical Data Reveals Stark Disparities
The most recent available EEO-1 data from 2023 shows that white men made up a third of the overall workforce at surveyed companies but held 52.7% of executive and senior management roles. Women held 34.5% of executive and senior manager roles, up from 29.2% a decade earlier. Black and Hispanic women remained sharply underrepresented in senior roles despite making modest gains.
As Fortune reported, Lucas herself acknowledged at a Harvard University conference in April 2026 that data collection is essential for protecting workers, saying: “There is no other way for me to be able to get money to victims who have been harmed. I can’t protect Black workers if I don’t collect information about the Black workers who applied to a job or are employees right now who might be within class.”
What Happens Next
The proposal now enters a 30-day public comment period, with a public hearing on August 11. If finalized, the federal requirement would end, though states like California and Illinois still require employers to submit workforce demographics reports, and legal observers suggest more states may enact similar requirements.
Companies are also likely to keep tracking demographic data internally, as Title VII still requires employers to maintain records pertinent to discrimination investigations. The EEOC under Lucas has continued to demand extensive demographic data in its own marquee cases.
Jocelyn Frye, president of the National Partnership for Women & Families, described the elimination as part of an effort to “obscure the prevalence of discrimination against racial minorities and women.” She posed a pointed question: “If the chair is moving forward with an agenda that thinks she ought to be focused on men and ought to be focused on white people, my answer is, ‘Well, does the data tell you that?’”
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, a sociology professor at UMass Amherst, offered a stark assessment: “In the absence of these data, employers and the EEOC will be flying blindly.”