Federal civil rights agency moves to stop requiring demographic data collection after 60 years

By — Alexandra Olson, Associated Press Alexandra Olson, Associated Press By — Claire Savage, Associated Press Claire Savage, Associated Press Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/federal-civil-rights-agency-moves-to-stop-requiring-demographic-data-collection-after-60-years Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Federal civil rights agency moves to stop requiring demographic data collection after 60 years Politics Jul 21, 2026 8:08 PM EDT NEW YORK (AP) — 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? WATCH: Trump's EEOC abandons key tool for combating workplace discrimination 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. Educate your inbox Subscribe to Here’s the Deal, our politics newsletter for analysis you won’t find anywhere else. EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, an outspoken critic of diversity and inclusion practices who has urged white men to come forward with discrimination complaints, argued that requiring companies to submit the annual demographic reports risks encouraging companies to justify discriminatory practices to diversify their workforce. "It may promote racial stereotyping at work, and it may encourage employers to engage in discrimination," Lucas said during a hearing ahead of the vote. Former Democratic EEOC commissioners and civil rights organizations have denounced the proposal, saying it will deprive the agency of a critical tool for uncovering discrimination patterns and tracking how women and racial minorities have fared since the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which created the EEOC and prohibited employment discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin and religion. The EEOC, which receives more than 88,000 worker complaints each year, has historically used the data to guide its enforcement priorities and inform some of its investigations. Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, the sole Democrat left on the EEOC since Trump moved to wrest control of the agency, voted against the proposal. "Today, the commission discusses whether to turn back time to a period before the civil rights movement, kneecapping its ability to protect worker