[Editor update 7/23/2026: Don’t just take my word for it. See this story in yesterday’s NY Times “Where U.S. Government Data Is Disappearing”]
[Editor’s note 7/24/2026: EEOC has now published its proposed rule change in the Federal Register: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/07/23/2026-14937/removal-of-reporting-requirements]
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is issuing a proposed rule to rescind and remove the requirements of private sector employers to submit workforce demographic reports each year. There’s a draft of the rule on the EEOC website, and the proposed rule is set to be published tomorrow (7/23/2026) in the Federal Register.
As per usual, the administration’s reasoning is pure projection and backward and circular logic:
“it has preliminarily determined that the reports are inconsistent with equal employment opportunity law and potentially unconstitutional. It further finds the data collected is not narrowly tailored, is unnecessary to enforce anti-discrimination
laws, and at a minimum, that any marginal benefits are outweighed by the substantial burdens imposed on both employers, who must submit these reports annually regardless of any specific allegation or indication of a potential violation of the statutes the EEOC
enforces, as well as the Commission.”
I mean, how can the government enforce anti-discrimination laws if they don’t collect the demographic data in the first place?!
This is what I’ve been most worried about. No matter how much web material the End of Term Archive collects and how much data are “rescued” by the Data Rescue Project and other efforts, if the administration doesn’t collect data and publish information going forward, we all lose out!
“US civil rights agency moves to end demographic data collection after 60 years.” AP, July 21, 2026.
How many women hold executive-level positions at top U.S. companies? What is the racial and ethnic breakdown of those roles? What is the gender and racial breakdown of the lowest-paid roles at those companies?
The Trump administration is making it harder for the public to know, moving to toss aside a 60-year-old requirement for tens of thousands of private sector employers to submit workforce demographic reports each year to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the agency responsible for enforcing anti-discrimination laws in the workplace.
The EEOC’s Republican majority voted 2-1 Tuesday to rescind the data collection requirement, submitting the proposal to a 30-day public commentary period before final approval. The proposal is a quiet but profound salvo in President Donald Trump’s shake up of civil rights enforcement, ending a practice that has endured through 10 Republican and Democratic administrations.
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