EEOC Votes 2-1 to End 60-Year Employer Demographic Filing Rule
Updated
Updated · TIME · Jul 22
EEOC Votes 2-1 to End 60-Year Employer Demographic Filing Rule
3 articles · Updated · TIME · Jul 22
Summary
A 2-1 Republican-majority EEOC vote would scrap the EEO-1 rule that since 1966 has required large employers to report workforce sex, race and ethnicity data annually.
The agency said the data are unnecessary for enforcing anti-discrimination law, burden employers and the commission, and can encourage race- or sex-based decision-making; a 30-day public comment period comes next.
Companies with at least 100 employees, or federal contractors with 50 or more, currently must file the reports, which help track representation in 10 broad job categories including top roles.
Kalpana Kotagal, the EEOC's lone Democratic commissioner, said the move would weaken worker protections, while civil-rights groups and 10 Democratic lawmakers argued ending measurement would make discrimination harder to prove.
The proposal fits Trump's broader rollback of DEI-related policies even as the EEOC handled more than 88,000 discrimination charges in fiscal 2025 and secured $660 million for over 17,000 victims.
Without federal oversight data, how can workers now prove systemic workplace discrimination exists?
As federal diversity reporting ends, will a patchwork of state laws create new compliance burdens for employers?
Could new technology track workplace fairness better than the 60-year-old government report?
The End of EEO-1? EEOC’s 2026 Proposal to Rescind Federal Workforce Reporting and Its Far-Reaching Consequences
Overview
On July 21, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) that aims to eliminate long-standing federal EEO reporting requirements. This proposal targets the rescission of routine reporting obligations that have existed for about 60 years, signaling a major shift in how employers provide workforce data to the government. After the NPRM is issued, a public comment period will allow employers, advocacy groups, and the public to give feedback on the changes. This marks the beginning of a significant reevaluation of the value and burden of these historical mandates.