The US government wants to end the collection of data on people’s race and gender Labor Rights Issues

The Republican-led EEOC’s decision to end employee diversity reports for public comment is drawing widespread criticism.

The The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)The top anti-discrimination watchdog in the United States has announced it will end a decades-old law that has prevented US employers from providing annual racial and gender discrimination information to their employees.

In a 2-1 vote, a majority of Republicans advanced the proposal, which will now undergo 30 days of public comment before final approval. The committee is expected to hold a public hearing on the decision on August 11.

The reports, known as EEO-1s, collect demographic information rather than identifying specific employees. They are designed to help the federal government understand how it operates and how it operates and to identify all forms of discrimination.

For the past 60 years, the EEOC has required companies with at least 100 employees or government contractors with at least 50 employees to provide this information. It is now collected by 73,000 different employers employing 50 million people.

The agency said the requirements are no longer needed, pointing to the money it gives employers, which it says is about $275m for a program that costs the EEOC $4m.

It also said that the law, although it has been in law for more than half a century, is inconsistent with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits employers from discriminating against workers or job applicants because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

“They (necessary) stand in direct conflict with the Title VII requirement that the work should be colorblind. The collection of data does not have a real issue, not only the risk of hindering workers but also raising concerns about the Constitution,” Andrea Lucas, chairman of the EEOC, said in a prepared comment that he shared on LinkedIn.

Ending enforcement was recommended in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s list of strategic ideas for US President Donald Trump’s policies. Despite denying ties to Project 2025 on the campaign trail, Trump has quickly appointed top government officials, including Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission.

Critics have challenged Lucas’s claim that the requirements prevent compliance.

“The government seeks to justify its efforts to rein in the collection and analysis of employment-related data by claiming that it causes employers to engage in or hire people based on race,” a coalition of EEOC officials said in an open letter in May when the rule was first proposed. “But these are false and inconsistent assumptions, contradicting the ways in which this data is collected, managed, and used.”