The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has continued reshaping the regulatory landscape through new proposed rules to align with President Trump’s executive orders. Beginning last year, the EEOC started proposing new rules to strip down longstanding guidance on a wide range of civil rights issues. These proposed rules encompass topics such as national origin discrimination, record-keeping requirements, affirmative action reporting requirements, and pregnancy discrimination.
So, what are the proposed rules?
Proposed Rules
- Recission of “Guidelines on Discrimination Because of National Origin”
The EEOC requested recission of these guidelines, which currently include language suggesting that “speak-English-only” rules create a presumption of discrimination under the disparate impact theory of discrimination. The EEOC’s move away from this guidance aligns with Executive Order 14224 declaring English as the United States official language. The “speak-English-only” guidance does not align with the current EEOC administration’s view towards disparate impact claims, which requires a showing of a particular employment practice that causes discriminatory treatment.
- Recission of “Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures – Recordkeeping”
This proposed rule aims to remove the recordkeeping requirements of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (“UGESP”) as they relate to the safe harbor provisions against disparate impact discrimination claims filed with the EEOC. Since their publication in 1978, the UGESP have served as a set of principles governing the federal government’s use of tests and other selection procedures. The EEOC’s proposed rule would rescind the USESP’s recordkeeping requirements, the obligation to retain validation documentation and records permitting analysis of selection procedures by race, sex, and ethnicity.
- Recission of 1979 Interpretive Rule of “Affirmative Action Appropriate Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964” and Recission of Affirmative Action Reporting Requirements
The proposed recissions are a continuation of the current EEOC administration’s removal of affirmative action from the federal regulations. The EEOC began to eliminate or restrict affirmative action requirements during the first few months of President Trump’s second term under the premise that affirmative action is, in itself, violative of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other similar laws. The recission of the affirmative action rules has already been published to the federal registrar.
Additionally, the EEOC proposed additional recissions on reporting requirements, which will remove requirements for employers to report workforce demographic data to the EEOC. On July 21, 2026, the EEOC published a notice of proposed rulemaking, which would rescind and remove the requirements to file the EEO-1 through EEO-6 forms. However, the proposed rescission is not yet final, and current reporting obligations remain in effect.
- Revisions to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Regulations
This proposed rule aims to revise the guidance on the definition of “arising out of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions” that the EEOC initially published when the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) first came into effect. The main impact of this revision is yet to be seen but is expected to further limit what constitutes a “pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical condition” under the PWFA.
What Does This Mean?
The central theme to all of these proposed rules is de-regulation. The rules are eliminating decades-old guidance employers have been able to rely on when defending cases of discrimination, with a particular target at disparate impact discrimination. Notably, however, these proposed rules are not regulations (yet) and do not affect any federal statutory requirements under Title VII and other federal civil rights laws. Discrimination of any form is still prohibited, including the disparate impact theory. Employers should expect the EEOC to continue in its de-regulation efforts moving forward and expect more proposed changes. The actual impact of these changes is yet to be seen, so stay tuned for future updates.
Employer Takeaways
Despite the removal of the EEOC guidance, employers should continue to collect, monitor, and analyze employee data to ensure their policies and practices are not disparately impacting protected classes of individuals. These regulatory changes do not eliminate the possibility that employers will face these types of discrimination claims and, even more so, will make defending these claims more difficult. Further, regulatory guidance can, and does, change from administration to administration. Permanently altering workplace practices based on the current regulatory changes is ill advised.
If you have questions regarding this development or any other labor matter, please contact a K|W|W attorney.
