Comment on removing data reporting requirements (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)

For over 60 years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has required covered employers to report employee demographic data. Without adequate reasoning or legal justification, the agency proposes ending this requirement.

New York City and eight local governments, in collaboration with Public Rights Project, filed a comment opposing the EEOC’s proposal. The comment highlights the agency’s failure to consider how local governments and employers in their communities rely on this data. For example, state enforcement offices and litigators rely on it to help root out discrimination in the workplace. The comment explains that without the reporting mechanism:

• The burden of civil rights enforcement will further shift to workers,
• The EEOC and local government enforcement agencies will need to spend additional resources that they don’t have to enforce civil rights law, and 
• The quality of the data will suffer without a standardized collection and reporting process.

By eliminating the reporting requirements, the EEOC is undermining efforts to combat employment discrimination and impeding the work to dismantle barriers to opportunity in workplaces across the U.S.

Read the comment.