So the Admin Apparently Thinks Collecting Anti-Discrimination Data ‘Promotes Racial Stereotyping’

The administration of hating data collection strikes again; on Tuesday, MAGA’s version of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) voted to toss a requirement that has mandated—by law, for decades—employers to share demographic data about their workplaces. Clearly, the administration hasn’t learned its lesson when it comes to these things! 

“The EEOC’s majority has abandoned its longstanding mission of civil rights enforcement,” Deborah J. Vagins, senior vice president for advocacy and programs at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights said in a statement following the news. “The EEOC’s EEO-1 and related data collections, which collect race, ethnicity, and gender demographic information from employers, have been in place through Democratic and Republican administrations alike since the 1960s.”

For at least six decades, the EEOC has been tracking workplace data as required by the Civil Rights Law—as a way of monitoring broad employer trends, identifying systemic discrimination, and shaping anti-discriminatory policies. The EEOC, which was created in 1965, has also since had the task of examining discrimination complaints based on race, religion, sex, nationality, age, and disability. That is, until it had Andrea Lucas at the helm, by which the office has become a big avenue for Trump’s anti-DEI obsessions.

In December, Lucas tweeted a video calling on white men who’ve “experienced any discrimination at work” to contact the agency. In January, the administration consequently sued Coca Cola, after sniffing out a women’s networking event that—gasp!—dared to not invite any men. In April, it did similar, suing also the New York Times for allegedly promoting a woman over her—again, gasp!—white male counterpart. 

Now, data collection policies are some of the latest to be labeled by Lucas as discriminatory. “It may promote racial stereotyping at work, and it may encourage employers to engage in discrimination,” she reportedly told colleagues during a hearing ahead of the vote.

“The Commission’s proposal to rescind the EEO Data Reports is consistent with the text of Title VII and Supreme Court precedent,” she said in a following statement. “Because the EEO Data Reports require all covered employers to categorize employees by race and sex annually, disconnected from any allegation of a Title VII violation or related Commission enforcement proceeding, the EEO Data Reports stand in direct tension with Title VII’s requirement that employment practices be colorblind.” Cool!

The proposed rescission was voted 2-1 by a GOP majority in the EEOC, though there will now be a 30-day period for public comments before the proposal is considered for a final approval in a hearing, which is scheduled for August 11. 

“If you cannot measure problems, you cannot address them, which is exactly why this EEOC is proposing to stop demographic data collections,” Vagins explains. “Discrimination does not go away when you don’t assess it; it just makes it harder to prove. This administration has declared its war on integrated workforces and equal opportunity.”