EEOC Proposes Ending Annual Workforce Data Collection and 1979 Regulation

The EEOC was created by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Since 1966, companies with 100 or more employees have submitted annual EEO-1 reports listing the race, ethnicity, sex, and job categories of their workers. The agency has used the data to identify patterns in hiring and promotion.

EEOC records show the agency has recovered billions of dollars in settlements since the 1960s. In the Bass Pro Shops case filed in 2011, investigators used the company's EEO-1 filings to compare workforce composition across stores and counties. The company settled for $10.5 million in 2017 without admitting wrongdoing.

Karla Gilbride, who served as EEOC general counsel during the Biden administration, said the loss of routine data access would require subpoenas for each investigation and slow enforcement.

The 1979 regulation outlined conditions under which employers could adopt mentoring programs or hiring targets after documenting underrepresentation. The Supreme Court upheld the approach in the 1979 Weber decision and extended it to women in the 1987 Johnson decision.

Chair Andrea Lucas has stated that race- or sex-conscious programs violate Title VII if they exclude other groups. She wrote last year that employers must not use EEO-1 data to treat employees differently based on protected characteristics. Chai Feldblum, a former commissioner, said the Weber-Johnson standard remains binding law even if the EEOC rescinds its own regulation.

She noted the Supreme Court has not yet overturned those precedents.