EEOC Hearing on EEO-1 Rescission: Speakers Urge Retention or Reform

On Aug. 11, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) held a public hearing on its proposed rescission of EEO-1 reporting requirements, at which the majority of the twenty-two witnesses urged the commission to retain or modernize the framework rather than eliminate it.

Background: What the Proposal Would Change

The proposal, published in a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on July 23, 2026, would rescind the EEO-1, EEO-2, EEO-3, EEO-4, EEO-5, and EEO-6 reporting requirements, along with report-specific recordkeeping and record preservation requirements. The EEOC has argued that the reports are inconsistent with equal employment opportunity law, are not narrowly tailored, and may raise constitutional concerns because they could encourage unlawful race- or sex-based preferences, including quotas, in response to observed disparities.

For private employers, the principal change would be the elimination of the annual EEO-1 report, which currently applies to those with at least one hundred employees. The EEO-1 requires workforce demographic data by job category, race or ethnicity, and sex.

The proposal would also rescind related demographic surveys for unions, state and local governments, and public elementary and secondary school systems, as well as EEO-2 and EEO-6 reporting requirements that the EEOC has not required since 1981 and 1993, respectively.

HR Q&A: What Is the EEO-1 Component 1 Data Report?

Key Themes from the Hearing

Employer associations, employee-side lawyers, civil rights organizations, researchers, and workforce data organizations warned that ending standardized annual reporting would not eliminate requests for the same information. The EEOC, state agencies, and private plaintiffs would still seek demographic and workforce data through investigations, subpoenas, and discovery, but without a uniform federal format, employers could face greater uncertainty over what data to retain, how to organize it, and how quickly to produce it. Several speakers also questioned whether the NPRM’s projected cost savings account for the downstream costs of reconstructing data, litigating production disputes, and losing historical comparability.

An employer association, the Institute of Workplace Equality, composed of large employers and federal contractors, urged the EEOC to modernize EEO-1 reporting rather than eliminate it, calling the data a key tool for detecting potential discrimination. The association disputed the premise that reporting has led employers to adopt quotas, noting that neither its members’ experience nor federal contractor audits had shown that result.

Civil rights and employee-advocacy organizations argued that EEO data places individual charges in context, reveals broader patterns of hiring, promotion, pay, or occupational-segregation concerns, and supports systemic enforcement, particularly where individual workers lack access to comparative information. Without standardized reporting, these groups warned, the burden of uncovering workplace patterns would fall more heavily on individual employees and applicants.

Researchers and economists argued that the surveys support charge processing, enforcement planning, outreach, and employer self-correction, and that multiple speakers urged modernization or more tailored collection rather than rescission.

Checklist: EEO-1 Reporting Checklist

Employer-side testimony drew a sharp line between using demographic data to make employment decisions and using it to test whether employment systems are operating lawfully. Notably, no speaker cited a documented instance in which the reporting requirement produced unlawful race- or sex-based decisions. A nonprofit employer compliance association explained that properly used demographic analyses do not dictate decisions or prove discrimination but identify patterns that warrant closer review, citing examples that included one employer using aggregate data to flag a referral program that may have produced an unduly narrow applicant pool, and another that used a privileged review of promotion data to discover that some managers had misunderstood internal policies. In both cases, the data helped the employers evaluate risk, correct practices, and reinforce that decisions must be based on merit, qualifications, and business needs.

A former EEOC official, testifying on behalf of a civil liberties organization and former agency leaders, noted that aggregate EEOC data helps employers compare their workforces with peers. A workforce analytics firm warned that voluntary disclosure is not a reliable substitute because it creates selection bias and reduces comparability across employers.

Several organizations testified in support of rescission, arguing that routine reporting pressures employers to focus on demographic outcomes, requires classification of employees into broad race and sex categories, and raises constitutional concerns, including the claim that the regime institutionalizes racial classifications without a compelling government interest. These speakers emphasized that existing nondiscrimination laws would continue to protect employees and that the EEOC retains authority to request tailored records in specific investigations.

Toolkit: SHRM’s BEAM Toolkit for I&D 

Next Steps

The EEOC did not take formal action at the Aug. 11, 2026, hearing. As of the hearing date, the proposal had already drawn significant public comment, with nearly 1,500 comments submitted. A number of organizations have also pressed the EEOC to extend the comment period beyond the current thirty-day window.

Regardless of outcome, employers may wish to consider several practical steps:

• Watch for potential legal challenges to the final rule and for any interim EEOC guidance on recordkeeping or data-collection expectations during the transition.
• Existing data-collection, retention, and production protocols may need to be evaluated for sufficiency without EEO-1 as a backstop.
• Ensure that privileged analyses of workforce decisions are structured to reflect lawful, merit-based objectives.
• Consider how to evaluate workforce trends without standardized federal data.
• Those with multistate operations may also want to consider that state and local workforce data, pay data, or demographic disclosure obligations would remain in effect regardless of federal rescission.

T. Scott Kelly and James A. Patton, Jr. are attorneys with Ogletree Deakins in Birmingham, Ala. Kiosha H. Dickey is an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in Columbia, S.C. Zachary V. Zagger is an attorney with Ogletree Deakins in New York City. © 2026 Ogletree Deakins. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission.