WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has proposed ending its annual collection of EEO-1 demographic data and rescinding its 1979 regulation that permitted voluntary race- and gender-conscious employer actions. Both proposals were submitted to the White House for review in 2025.

The EEO-1 data collection, required since a 1966 rule, mandates that companies with 100 or more employees report annually on the race, ethnicity, sex, and job categories of their workforce. The EEOC has used this data to identify where people of color and women are not being hired or promoted. In 2011, the EEOC filed a lawsuit against Bass Pro Shops alleging nationwide discrimination against Black and Hispanic job applicants. The agency used EEO-1 data to compare the company’s workforce with labor pools in surrounding areas and identified dozens of stores with minimal Black and Hispanic representation. The case settled in 2017 for $10.5 million, with Bass Pro Shops agreeing to appoint a diversity director and make good-faith efforts to recruit and hire non-white candidates.

The 1979 regulation allowed employers to implement voluntary measures—such as mentoring programs or hiring targets—to address documented discrimination, provided the actions were reasonable, time-limited, and based on prior evidence of imbalance. That guidance aligned with Supreme Court rulings in the 1979 Weber and 1987 Johnson cases, which upheld certain affirmative action plans as lawful. The legal principles established in those cases remain binding regardless of the EEOC’s regulatory changes.

Andrea Lucas, the Trump-appointed chair of the EEOC, defended the agency’s direction at the Fortune Workplace Innovation Summit. “Regardless of what has happened before, the way to stop discriminating based on race is to stop discriminating based on race. The end. Full stop,” she said. Lucas added, “I think that that's a more beautiful vision of our country, and I think it's consistent with the text of the statute.” She did not respond to direct questions about the 2025 proposals.

Chai Feldblum, who served on the EEOC during the Obama and first Trump administrations, expressed concern about the proposed rescission. “The EEOC says you can take some of these voluntary efforts, even though they will be race- or gender-conscious,” Feldblum said. She added, “This is the EEOC giving employers the roadmap of how they can take race and gender into account in a positive way and not violate the law.” Feldblum also said, “I think the Supreme Court is just waiting for a case that might allow them to overturn those two important cases,” referring to Weber and Johnson.

Karla Gilbride, former general counsel of the EEOC during the Biden administration, emphasized the operational importance of EEO-1 data. “It's one of the first things that you can look at as you're trying to learn more,” she said. Gilbride warned that without readily available EEO-1 reports, enforcing anti-discrimination laws would become “significantly harder and more laborious.”