Decades-old requirements for federal agencies to report certain employee demographic data are now only optional, according to new instructions from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
EEOC is no longer requiring agencies to report breakdowns of race, sex and ethnicity in the federal workforce. Agencies also do not have to address “diversity and inclusion” principles, “triggers” or “gender identity” in their annual demographic data reports, EEOC said in June 3 instructions.
Agencies can choose to omit any additional details from their reports that they believe would “raise legal or policy concerns,” or otherwise conflict with President Donald Trump’s executive orders.
The new instructions apply to EEOC’s Management Directive 715 (MD-715) — a workforce reporting mandate that dates back to 2003 and requires federal agencies to submit demographic data each fiscal year. The annual workforce reports are meant to help fulfill statutory equal employment opportunity (EEO) requirements for agencies. They capture information on federal workforce gains and losses, broken down by race, sex, ethnicity and disability, compared across different occupations and pay rates.
EEOC said MD-715 in its current form “no longer meets the needs of the modern federal government.”
“Today’s action ensures agencies can meet their MD‑715 obligations without creating legal or policy conflicts as we work toward a modernized directive,” EEOC Chairwoman Andrea Lucas said in a June 4 press release.
Though the timeline is not clear, EEOC is eventually planning to issue a replacement directive intended to “improve effectiveness and accountability in the federal sector, eliminate unnecessary regulatory burdens unrelated to the EEOC’s statutory obligations and address recent legal developments.”
EEOC did not respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment on the timeline for issuing the new directive.
According to EEOC’s new instructions, conducting “barrier analysis” is now only optional for agencies. It’s a type of assessment to identify any demographic groups experiencing barriers to getting hired or promoted into the federal government. If agencies identify a disparity in their demographic data, it would normally create a “trigger” obligation to analyze the cause. But that “trigger” function is also no longer a requirement for agencies under EEOC’s changes.
Democratic Commissioner Kalpana Kotagal, who voted against the EEOC’s revisions, called the commission’s decision a “‘head in the sand’ approach to eliminating discrimination.”
“Turning a blind eye to discrimination does not mean that it has gone away — it simply means that it goes uncorrected,” Kotagal said in a June 3 dissenting statement. “For decades, this data has served as an important tool for agencies to affirmatively identify barriers to EEO in their workforces, and employment policies and practices. The additional instructions only serve to weaken agencies’ ability to have effective, affirmative programs to prevent discrimination.”
Agencies are legally required “to collect and maintain accurate employment information on the race, national origin, sex and disability of its employees,” according to federal regulations. But the additional instructions lift certain requirements of what information agencies must then report to EEOC.
“Federal agencies have benefited from collecting demographic data. It’s the best way to figure out if one has a problem in one’s workplace,” Chai Feldblum, former EEOC commissioner from 2010–2018, said in an interview with Federal News Network. “Now that EEOC has said this data is not required, I think federal agencies might actually be afraid to even collect the data in the first place. And that is truly harmful for federal employees.”
Federal News Network did not receive responses from any of the 14 cabinet-level agencies it contacted seeking details on whether they plan to alter their MD-715 reports due to the additional instructions.
Although continuing to report race, sex and ethnicity data to EEOC is still an option, the new instructions will likely result in “patchwork” responses from agencies with significant omissions, Kotagal said, leading to limited information on the potential for discrimination across the federal workforce.
The EEOC instructions do not lift agency reporting requirements on disability status. But Kotagal suggested the instructions would still leave room for agencies to omit that information, if they determine that it conflicts with Trump’s anti-DEIA executive order, which included the elimination of “accessibility” in federal activities.
EEOC issued the MD-715 instructions on June 3 following a five-day voting period for commissioners without public input. EEOC had originally scheduled a public meeting to discuss the changes, but the meeting was later canceled. A spokesperson did not respond to questions about why the meeting was canceled or if there would be additional opportunity for public input.
The lifted requirements were issued as “additional instructions,” rather than going through a more rigorous regulatory process with an opportunity for public comment. That process is required for “significant” changes to EEOC policies, federal regulations state.
“In reality the commission amended MD-715 without engaging in the transparent and bipartisan process the agency’s regulations require for such amendments,” Kotagal said.
EEO Leaders, a group of former EEOC and Labor Department leaders, said the MD-715 changes will ultimately undermine EEO efforts in the federal sector.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the organization said, “The bottom line is that the EEOC does not want to require employers to collect demographic data about their workforces and report that data to the EEOC — abandoning a critical mechanism for detecting and preventing employment discrimination.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email drew.friedman@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at drewfriedman.11
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