Does your employer discriminate? It’s about to get harder to find out.

September 9, 2026

The Trump administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is ending its 60-year practice of requiring employers to submit annual demographic data about their workforce by gender, race, and ethnicity—a key recommendation from Project 2025. This change, expected to be finalized soon after a Republican 2-1 vote, will eliminate a critical tool investigators have used to identify systemic discrimination patterns that led to major settlements benefiting thousands of workers. Under acting chair Andrea Lucas, the EEOC has dramatically shifted focus toward investigating so-called "reverse discrimination" against white men and has withdrawn from cases protecting transgender workers.

Who is affected

Workers experiencing discrimination based on gender, race, and ethnicity (particularly women and racial minorities)
LGBTQ+ workers, especially transgender employees facing workplace discrimination
Black workers at retail chains and other industries where demographic patterns matter
Women applicants in male-dominated industries like trucking and railroad operations
EEOC investigators and attorneys who rely on demographic data
The approximately 1,800 current EEOC staff members (down 300 from the previous year)
Employers with 100 or more employees who currently file EEO-1 reports
Workers who will now face increased difficulty proving systemic discrimination
Private attorneys and workers who will need to obtain data through subpoenas
The 20 large law firms investigated for their DEI practices (nine have settled)

What action is being taken

The EEOC is finalizing a rule to end the collection of annual workforce demographic data from employers
The agency is withdrawing from cases brought by transgender workers facing discrimination
The EEOC is no longer pursuing disparate-impact discrimination cases
Acting chair Andrea Lucas is actively recruiting white men to file discrimination complaints through social media campaigns
The agency is operating with reduced staffing (approximately 1,800 staff, down 300 from the prior year)
EEOC investigators are conducting smaller, more localized investigations without access to comparative demographic data
Workers must still file EEOC charges before pursuing discrimination claims in court, though they receive "Notice of Right to Sue" letters when the agency declines cases

Why it matters

This change fundamentally undermines the EEOC's ability to identify and prosecute systemic workplace discrimination that affects large groups of workers. The demographic data has been essential for detecting patterns—such as when employers apply seemingly neutral policies that disproportionately harm specific groups—leading to major settlements like the $3.2 million gender discrimination case against CSX Transportation. Without aggregate data, investigators cannot easily compare companies within industries or identify discrimination across multiple locations, making it nearly impossible to pursue the large-scale cases that have historically benefited thousands of workers simultaneously. The shift represents a historic departure from the agency's 60-year mission and aligns with broader Trump administration efforts to dismantle diversity initiatives, effectively protecting employers from accountability for discriminatory practices while redirecting enforcement resources toward claims of reverse discrimination against white men.

What's next

The EEOC could finalize the data-collection repeal as soon as the end of this month (few substantive changes expected despite thousands of public comments)
Former commissioner Chai Feldblum predicts a multi-year "chasm" in data availability until a new presidential administration restarts collection
Workers who file charges will increasingly receive "Notice of Right to Sue" letters and will have 90 days to file discrimination lawsuits with their own legal representation
Private attorneys will need to use subpoenas to obtain demographic data from individual employers for discrimination cases
Employers may stop voluntarily publishing workforce demographics data publicly due to fears it could be used against them by the Trump administration or conservative activist groups

Read full article from source: The 19th