The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is moving to stop collecting employers’ race and gender workforce data. The change will strip the agency of a long-used tool for spotting discrimination patterns and guiding investigations. The plan would affect the EEO-1 report, which has required employers with at least 100 workers to submit demographic information for decades, Bloomberg Law reports.

The shift fits the Trump administration’s broader push against diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, which it has framed as discriminatory toward White men. But employment lawyers and former EEOC officials say the change could make it harder for the agency to detect systemic bias, especially in cases that rely on numbers to show broader patterns rather than just one worker’s complaint.

“Without this data, the government, watchdogs, and advocates will not be able to identify promotion disparities, job segregation, and other barriers to equal opportunity at work, said Jessica Ramey Stender, Policy Director & Deputy Legal Director of Equal Rights Advocates to the outlet. “We cannot change what we cannot measure."

Bloomberg Law also points out that The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 included plans to cut the EEO-1, saying it “could lead to racial quotas to remedy alleged race discrimination.”

Former commissioners and advocates say the data often helps investigators decide whether a charge points to a bigger problem. 

For example, EEO-1 reports have helped launch enforcement actions, including a case involving a California supermarket chain and a $5.5 million EEOC settlement with a Michigan trucking company over alleged sex bias. The reports have also been used to measure representation gaps and to compare employers with industry peers. A formal proposal has yet to be published by the agency in the Federal Register.

For an organization with the tagline, “Striving for equal opportunity in the workplace,” and with the words “equal employment opportunity” in its very own name, stripping measures that monitor equality sends yet another stark message to workers.