EEOC plans to scrap 60-year-old rule requiring companies to report racial and gender staff data.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has moved to scrap a sixty-year-old mandate requiring employers to report racial and gender makeup of their staff. A Republican-led majority voted two to one on this plan last week. The proposal now enters a thirty-day window for public feedback before final approval. A hearing is scheduled for August 11 to hear more voices on the issue.

This system gathers aggregate demographic information rather than specific names or identities of individual workers. For decades, these reports helped federal officials track employment trends and spot systemic discrimination patterns. The rule applied to companies with at least one hundred employees or federal contractors with fifty or more staff members. Currently, seventy-three thousand different employers covering fifty million workers submit this data annually.

Agency leaders argue the requirement is no longer necessary. They claim it burdens businesses heavily while costing the commission only a fraction of that amount. Estimates suggest employers spend almost two hundred and seventy-five million dollars to comply with a program that costs the EEOC just four million dollars. The agency also states the current rule conflicts with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Andrea Lucas, chair of the commission, explained her position in remarks shared online. She stated that collecting such data without a specific allegation risks hindering effective enforcement and raises constitutional concerns. Her view is that employment practices must remain colorblind according to the law. This shift aligns with Project 2025, a policy wish list from the Heritage Foundation for President Donald Trump. Despite denying ties to that project during his campaign, Trump appointed several of its authors to key government roles after taking office.

Critics strongly oppose ending this data collection. A coalition of former EEOC officials released an open letter in May when the rule was first proposed. They rejected claims that these activities force employers into quota systems or race-based hiring. The group called such assertions inaccurate and unsupported speculation. They emphasized how the data is actually managed and used to protect workers rights without overstepping legal boundaries.