The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has issued a public notice to employers that the agency has received two new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to disclose 2021 and 2022 EEO-1 Type 2 Reports filed by federal contractors and first-tier subcontractors (collectively, “contractors”). The reports have been requested by the University of Utah and the non-profit organization “As You Sow”. The OFCCP estimates that the request covers approximately 14,000 unique employers. Currently, OFCCP only possesses 2021 EEO-1 data, so the notice is limited to that dataset.
According to the OFCCP, employers have until December 9, 2024* to object.
View List of Impacted EmployersThe FOIA requests are for EEO-1 Type 2 reports, also known as Consolidated Reports. These reports, filed by multi-establishment employers, reflect all employees in the employer’s US workforce. The data table includes EEO-1 job categories on one axis and race, ethnicity, and gender data on the other, with number of employees in each job category/race/ethnicity/gender combination reflected within the table. With this information, customers and competitors, as an example, can view the demographic composition of a workforce, evaluating its diversity by job level. View a sample 2021 EEO-1 Report here.
While employers’ EEO-1 Reports are not subject to FOIA requests through the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), OFCCP and EEOC jointly collect EEO-1 Reports from contractors and OFCCP does not have a similar FOIA exemption. Employers who did not identify as a Federal contractor when filing the 2021 EEO-1 Report would not be subject to disclosure, but should still check the List of Impacted Employers in case the employer is included erroneously.
A similar request was filed in 2022 for 2016-2020 EEO-1 Type 2 Reports. The reports were subsequently released to the reporter who requested the information, with the exception that reports have not yet been released for employers who filed an objection with OFCCP. These objections are still pending in court, offering employers no insight as to whether their objections to the prior FOIA request will be deemed valid.
