The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced the opening of the 2024 EEO-1 Component 1 data collection. Covered employers have until June 24, 2025, to submit their EEO-1 Reports.

The announcement from the EEOC includes a message from Acting Chair Andrea Lucas. In addition to reminding employers of the general prohibition against discrimination based on protected characteristics, Ms. Lucas notes that President Trump’s Executive Order titled “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy” deprioritizes the EEOC’s enforcement of cases involving disparate impact discrimination. The disparate impact theory, which is codified in Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes, provides that facially neutral policies can be discriminatory if they disproportionately affect individuals of a certain race or sex. 

Instead, Ms. Lucas announced that under her leadership, the EEOC will “prioritize remedying intentional discrimination claims.” She also states,

under existing law, the fact that a neutral employment policy or practice has an unequal outcome on employees of a particular race or sex—that is, has a “disparate impact” based on race or sex—does not justify your company or organization treating any of your employees differently based on their race or sex. As noted above, you must not use the information collected and reported in your organization’s EEO-1 Component 1 report to justify treating employees differently based on their race, sex, or other protected characteristic.

In contrast to prior years when employers generally had a three-month window to complete the EEO-1 Report filing process, this window for this cycle is a scant 35 days. On the EEOC’s announcement page, the EEOC justifies the shorter collection period as a means to “identify continued cost savings for the American public.” The EEOC emphasizes that the collection period will not be extended beyond June 24; in past years, the EEOC has extended the filing deadline when the percentage of filers remained below expectations. Employers should not expect similar extensions this year. 

The final 2024 EEO-1 Instruction Booklet is now available. As we previously reported, the EEOC requested approval from the Office of Management and Budget to eliminate the ability of employers to report nonbinary employees. This request was granted, and the Instruction Booklet was updated accordingly.

Notably, the Instruction Booklet continues to provide that federal contractors with 50 to 99 employees are required to file EEO-1 Reports. The Instruction Booklet expressly notes that this requirement hinges on Executive Order 11246 and its implementing regulations, but it fails to address how this still applies now that President Trump has rescinded Executive Order 11246.

For additional information regarding the EEO-1 Reporting process, please see our prior bulletin and the EEOC’s Frequently Asked Questions. Please contact any member of Constangy’s EEO/Contractor Compliance, Reporting & Analytics Practice Group for guidance.