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EEOC Votes to Propose Rescinding Mandatory EEO-1 Demographic Reporting

A 2-1 vote opens a rulemaking process that could eliminate a data collection requirement HR teams have built compliance and investigation practices around for decades.

For nearly sixty years, employers with 100 or more employees have submitted an annual EEO-1 Component 1 report to the EEOC, breaking down their workforce by race, sex, and job category. The data feeds enforcement statistics, informs pattern-or-practice investigations, and gives employers themselves a standardized way to track representation over time. On July 22, the Commission voted 2-1 to publish a [proposed rule](https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/2026_NL01498_NPRM_Rescission.pdf) that would eliminate the mandatory reporting requirement entirely. The proposal is now open for public comment — nothing has changed yet for employers required to file — but the vote signals a significant shift in how the agency views demographic data collection as a compliance tool. The [notice of proposed rulemaking](https://www.eeoc.gov/sites/default/files/2026-07/2026_NL01498_NPRM_Rescission.pdf) would rescind the regulation requiring covered employers to submit annual EEO-1 data, a requirement that currently sits at [29 C.F.R. § 1602.7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/1602.7). The Commission's stated rationale, as described in coverage of the vote, goes beyond administrative streamlining: the majority position characterizes mandatory race and sex data collection as potentially in tension with equal employment opportunity principles and raises constitutional concerns about the government compelling employers to classify workers by protected characteristics, [Axios reported](https://www.axios.com/2026/07/22/eeoc-race-reporting-data). That framing matters because it goes to the legitimacy of the underlying data collection scheme, not just its administrative burden — a rescission grounded in that reasoning would be harder to reverse in a future administration than one grounded purely in cost-benefit analysis.