Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, REPORTS—Institute urges states to take action to fill gaps left by a weakened EEOC, (Oct 17, 2025)

By Patricia K. Ruiz, J.D.

Given changing federal treatment of immigrants, states should emphasize protections for workers regardless of their citizenship and immigration status, the EPI recommended.

A report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) discusses the current state of nondiscrimination protections, including current threats to enforcement in the workplace and actions by the Trump administration to limit the key functions of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The report provides recommendations to states on how to close the gaps left by the administration’s weakening of the EEOC and extend protections to classes not currently covered by federal nondiscrimination law.

Current threats to workplace nondiscrimination. Since taking office, the Trump administration undermined or limited key functions of the EEOC by: (1) illegally firing two of the three commissioners and the general counsel; (2) imposing new limits on the collection of data necessary to accurately assess discriminatory impact by shortening annual reporting periods and removing nonbinary gender reporting entirely from the forms used to collect demographic data from private employers and federal contractors; and (3) directing the EEOC to focus more on so-called “DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination and anti-American national origin bias and discrimination.” Additionally, the report states, the administration has politicized the EEOC, reversed course on the EEOC’s enforcement of disparate impact and sex discrimination cases, and also diminished the enforcement capacity of the EEOC by closing field offices and rolling back data collection and analysis, critical tools for enforcement.

Strengthening workplace discrimination protections. States can maintain and strengthen workplace nondiscrimination protections by updating state statutes to lock in current federal protections, plugging the gaps left by the Trump administration’s weakening of the EEOC, by, at a minimum, ensuring their state codes include at least all the protected classes covered in federal nondiscrimination law, ensuring state nondiscrimination laws cover workers in the public and private sectors and mirror federal employment minimum thresholds for coverage, and establishing and adequately funding a state commission or division with enforcement authority.

Next, states should include additional protections already implemented in other states and codify inclusive definitions for protected traits, including marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. Some states have also incorporated additional protected traits, such as reproductive health decision-making, medical conditions, status as a victim of domestic violence, housing status, criminal records, and military or veteran status.

States should modernize nondiscrimination policies by extending and locking in coverage across classes of workers and collect comprehensive data, the EPI recommends. States should extend coverage to independent contractors, who may not be inherently covered by employment discrimination laws. Given changing federal treatment of immigrants, states should also emphasize protections for workers regardless of their citizenship and immigration status, emphasizing and enforcing fair treatment regardless of documentation status. Finally, with the future of federal data collection at risk, states should collect employment and pay data at the state level.

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