EEOC moves to end 60-year employer race and gender data collection

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has required large employers to file annual demographic reports since 1966. The EEO-1 form collects data on the race, sex, and national origin of workers across 10 job categories — from executives and managers down to service workers and laborers. Private employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees meeting certain thresholds must file each year. The EEO-1 form's legal basis is Section 709(c) of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which explicitly authorizes the EEOC to require employers to make and keep employment records and submit reports.

The program was almost immediately effective. When the EEOC first analyzed EEO-1 data in the late 1960s, it found large racial and gender disparities across major industries before a single discrimination complaint had been filed. Civil rights advocates have used the data to identify systemic patterns that individual complaints alone can't capture.

On May 14, 2026, EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas sent a proposed rule to the White House regulatory office OIRA that would rescind the EEO-1 requirement and four related programs. EEO-2 collects data from labor unions, EEO-3 from local referral unions, EEO-4 from state and local governments, and EEO-5 from public elementary and secondary school systems. The proposal also targets recordkeeping requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, and the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

Lucas filed the proposal without first publishing text of the proposed rule changes. At the time of submission, no public draft was available, meaning advocates and employers had no way to assess what specific regulatory text would actually be removed.

Andrea Lucas has been the EEOC's chair since January 20, 2025, when President Trump designated her acting chair on his first day back in office. The Senate confirmed Lucas for a full term on July 31, 2025, by a vote of 52 to 45, for a term that runs through July 1, 2030. She had first joined the Commission in 2020 after a career in labor and employment law at Gibson Dunn in Washington, D.C.

Lucas has argued that demographic data can be weaponized to discriminate against white men. She sent letters to Fortune 500 CEOs warning that DEI programs may violate Title VII. In early 2026, she asked white male workers to file discrimination complaints with the EEOC. The EEO-1 rescission fits her stated enforcement priorities: if the government doesn't collect demographic data, it can't use that data as a basis for systemic discrimination investigations.

The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 policy blueprint specifically called for eliminating the EEO-1 form as part of a broader effort to roll back DEI programs. Lucas's proposal directly tracks that recommendation. Project 2025 argued that mandatory demographic data collection encourages employers to make race- and sex-conscious employment decisions.

Lucas's push to rescind EEO-1 comes as the EEOC has already made a series of enforcement changes. In early 2026, the agency rescinded its harassment enforcement guidance without notice-and-comment rulemaking. It also eliminated the option for employers to voluntarily report employees who self-identify as non-binary, requiring all reports to classify workers as male or female.

Rescinding a federal regulation requires following the Administrative Procedure Act's notice-and-comment process — the same process used to create the regulation in the first place. The EEOC's May 14 submission to OIRA is the first step. OIRA, the White House office that reviews significant federal rules for consistency with presidential priorities, has up to 90 days to complete its review, though the Trump administration has set a presumptive 28-day review target for deregulatory actions.

After OIRA clears the proposal, the EEOC must publish it in the Federal Register and open a public comment period of at least 60 days. After reviewing comments, the agency issues a final rule. The entire process can take a year or more. Section 709(c) of Title VII also requires the EEOC to hold a public hearing before changing EEO reporting requirements — an additional procedural step not required for most agency rulemakings.

Jessica Ramey Stender, policy director at Equal Rights Advocates — a gender justice legal organization based in San Francisco — responded to the Bloomberg Law report on the proposal with a statement: "Without this data, the government, watchdogs, and advocates will not be able to identify promotion disparities, job segregation, and other barriers to equal opportunity at work. We cannot change what we cannot measure."

Former EEOC officials have been sharply critical of Lucas's leadership overall. HR Dive reported that ex-commission leaders say Lucas is using the agency's resources to pursue an agenda that diverges from its core anti-discrimination mandate. A group calling itself EEO Leaders wrote to Fortune 500 companies after Lucas's DEI letter, telling them not to back away from diversity efforts.

Employers should keep filing EEO-1 reports. The current regulations remain in force until a final rescission rule is published in the Federal Register. Law firm Littler Mendelson warned employers that stopping EEO-1 filings based on a proposal carries real compliance risk — the regulation hasn't changed, and the EEOC still has authority to enforce filing requirements including debarring federal contractors who don't comply.

The EEOC had not yet opened its online portal for 2026 EEO-1 filings as of May 14. Last year's portal opened in late May 2025, with a June 24, 2025 deadline. It's unclear whether the rescission proposal will affect the 2026 filing window. Federal contractors face additional scrutiny because noncompliance can affect their ability to win government contracts.

The National Partnership for Women & Families, which has tracked EEO-1 data collection for decades, published an explainer noting that EEO-1 data has been used by civil rights advocates, journalists, and researchers to document persistent patterns in workforce composition. Without the annual data, identifying multi-year trends in representation — particularly in industries with documented discrimination histories — becomes significantly harder.

NPR reported in March 2026 that the Trump EEOC has been reorienting the agency's enforcement priorities away from investigating discrimination against racial and gender minorities and toward investigating complaints from white men. Rescinding EEO-1 data collection removes a dataset that made systemic discrimination cases possible, while the EEOC's stated focus on individual intentional discrimination cases makes that data unnecessary to its new mission.