The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Republican majority voted 2-1 Tuesday to rescind a 60-year-old requirement that tens of thousands of private-sector employers submit annual workforce demographic reports. The proposal was submitted to a 30-day public commentary period before final approval.
The reporting requirement has been in place through 10 Republican and Democratic administrations. The proposed change is part of President Donald Trump’s shake-up of civil rights enforcement and would make it harder for the public to see how many women hold executive-level positions at major U.S. companies, or to examine the racial and ethnic breakdown of those roles and the gender and racial breakdown of lower-paid positions.
What the reports contain
Since 1966, the EEOC has required companies with at least 100 employees, or federal contractors with at least 50 workers, to submit an annual form known as the EEO-1. The form has evolved over time and identifies 10 job categories, ranging from “Executive/Senior Level Officials and Managers” to “Laborers” and “Service Worker.”
The EEOC has historically used the information to guide enforcement priorities and inform some investigations. The agency receives more than 88,000 worker complaints each year. The data has also been used to track how women and racial minorities have fared since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which created the EEOC and prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin and religion.
EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, an outspoken critic of diversity and inclusion practices who has urged white men to come forward with discrimination complaints, argued that the reporting requirement could encourage companies to justify discriminatory practices as they seek to diversify their workforces. “It may promote racial stereotyping at work, and it may encourage employers to engage in discrimination,” Lucas said during a hearing before the vote.
Former Democratic EEOC commissioners and civil rights organizations denounced the proposal, saying it would deprive the agency of a critical tool for uncovering patterns of discrimination. Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the sole Democrat remaining on the EEOC since Trump moved to wrest control of the agency, voted against the proposal. “Today, the commission discusses whether to turn back time to a period before the civil rights movement, kneecapping its ability to protect workers,” Kotagal said.