Data collection tools are not normally at the center of deep civil rights controversies, but these are not normal times. Now, a proposal from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to stop collecting demographic workforce data from employers is poised to become the latest salvo in the ongoing, wide-ranging attack on civil rights enforcement launched by the current Trump administration. This proposal, if adopted, would do severe damage to equal opportunity in the workplace and women’s advancement by helping to shield discrimination from scrutiny and hamper robust enforcement of the law.
For more than 60 years, the EEOC has used the EEO-1 form, more formally known as the Employer Information Report, to collect demographic data on an annual basis about the workforce composition of employers with 100 or more employees. The form requires an employer to provide the number of employees in its workforce across ten job categories, and those data must be broken down by race, gender, and ethnicity. When collected, the data help provide insight into where workers fall within an organization and areas of concentration for different groups of workers across industries, pinpointing disparities and shedding light on broader employment trends. The Trump Administration’s aggressive and largely unprecedented attempt to eliminate this data collection tool in its entirety is a serious cause for alarm for the future of civil rights enforcement, with consequences for all workers who deserve workplaces free of discrimination.
Understanding why the EEO-1 form – a seemingly opaque technical tool – is so vital requires a closer look at its history.
One year after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA or 1964 Act), the EEOC opened its doors, charged with the responsibility of enforcing, among other things, Title VII of the CRA which prohibited discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Staff quickly learned the difficulties associated with fulfilling their responsibilities to enforce the new law and ensure compliance – putting at risk one of the key mechanisms intended to desegregate the workplace. The Commission’s tools were limited; it could take in complaints, hold hearings, and conduct limited investigations, but those tools often proved to be wholly insufficient in disrupting entrenched discrimination.
After decades of ingrained practices perpetuating racial segregation and exclusions from job opportunities, the country could not change overnight. Ensuring that the protections granted to workers in the law were reflected in their everyday experiences required better tools for the Commission.
One of the early mechanisms that the Commission deployed to tackle discriminatory employment practices was the EEO-1 form. The data collected using the form were instrumental in helping unearth segregated fields and jobs, exclusionary practices, and areas where Commission investigators should delve deeper to understand what was happening in individual workplaces. Importantly, the data, in combination with data on charge filings and relevant studies, helped give a broader picture of who was being shut out of certain industries or certain managerial opportunities, and to what extent certain categories of workers – such as Black and Latino workers or women workers – faced additional barriers when seeking out job opportunities. The demographic information also has helped show longer term trends and where progress is being made over time. For example, it is through EEO-1 data that early enforcement of employment protections could use data-based evidence of discriminatory patterns in major corporations, the textile industry, the utility industry, and more.
The form has proven to be a reliable enforcement tool over decades and is one of the only tools used to collect comprehensive demographic data to investigate employment discrimination charges, a testament to its enduring utility.
Now, the EEOC under President Trump is taking action to discard the form, along with similar forms used to collect workplace demographic data in specific settings such as unions and state and local governments, making it harder to pinpoint problems or recognize areas of progress.
The arguments against such collection – that it is burdensome or unnecessary, that it is imprecise, or that breaking down data by race or gender is somehow improper – make little sense. The lack of data will hamstring investigators and make it harder, if not impossible, to root out disparities and potential areas of discrimination. It is difficult to prove discrimination without actual data – the Administration’s efforts to eliminate one of the EEOC’s key investigatory tools is clearly counter to its ability to ensure all workers are treated fairly and without discrimination.
Discontinuing the EEO-1 data collection also sends a clear, unmistakable message about the intent of the Commission’s leadership to ignore data in favor of its own ideological agenda. Recent reports arguing that discrimination experienced by white men should be the sole priority, notwithstanding decades of charge data showing that the bulk of charges are filed by women and people of color, make clear that the administration is focused on pushing its own story regardless of the facts. It wants to dismiss the prevalence of racial and gender discrimination facing Black and Brown workers and women workers, and its skepticism is reflected in its efforts to fuel a narrative questioning the qualifications and merit of many workers of color and women workers. These dangerous policy choices are part of a broader strategy to unfairly frame efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion as improper or undesirable, but taking the teeth out of civil rights enforcement undermines protections for all workers, regardless of race or gender. Moving forward, any discriminatory effects of the Administration’s efforts, such as job losses experienced by women and people of color, or being shut out of promotional opportunities, will be harder to track without data – which is perhaps the ultimate goal.
The Administration has sought to downplay the existence of discrimination, ending programs that have helped document disparities, rewriting and whitewashing history to minimize past problems, and redefining the corrective measures used to combat discrimination historically as being the cause of the problem. The EEOC’s destructive effort to eliminate the long-standing EEO-1 form is just the latest in a concentrated effort to turn back the clock.