EEOC Shifts Gears on DEI Initiatives with National Enforcement Plan

On June 4, 2026, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC or Commission) issued its National Enforcement Plan (NEP) for Fiscal Years 2025-2029. The NEP replaces the Strategic Enforcement Plan (SEP) for Fiscal Years 2024-2028 and signals a marked shift in enforcement priorities. Those priorities largely reflect the objectives EEOC Chairwoman Andrea R. Lucas announced on her first day, including combating what the agency describes as DEI-motivated race and sex discrimination, anti-American national origin discrimination, religious bias and harassment, and issues relating to sex-based rights in the workplace. Below is a summary of the key developments and practical considerations for employers.

Reoriented Agency Principles

The NEP marks a meaningful departure from the Biden-era SEP. It explicitly aligns the EEOC’s enforcement approach with the Trump Administration’s policy objectives and states the Commission will use their discretion to advance those objectives.

Most notably, the NEP moves away from disparate-impact enforcement. Disparate impact claims arise when a neutral policy or practice creates disparities between groups of employees. Consistent with other Trump Administration initiatives, the EEOC states that it will prioritize intentional discrimination (disparate treatment) claims and eliminate disparate impact theories in its investigations to “the maximum degree possible.”

Anti-DEI Enforcement

The NEP provides a detailed overview on how the Trump-era EEOC will scrutinize DEI initiatives, such as “broad-based employment policies, programs, or practices” framed as DEI or “other similar euphemisms.” Practices subject to EEOC scrutiny include:

• Race- or sex-based quotas—including “aspirational goals”—in employment actions such as interviewing, hiring, staffing a particular project, layoffs, and promotions.
• Executive compensation, benefits, or bonuses tied to employee race- or sex-based goals.
• Limiting access to mentorship, sponsorship, fellowships, internships, and other on-the-job training based on race or sex.
• Diverse-slate policies, diverse hiring panel policies, requiring diversity statements from candidates, or candidate evaluation methods that consider protected characteristics.

Further, the EEOC appears poised to pursue enforcement actions on behalf of majority-group employees.

Other Notable Substantive Priorities

• Religious accommodation: The EEOC seeks to clarify—and likely expand—the scope of religious accommodation claims.
• "Anti-American” national origin discrimination: The EEOC will scrutinize policies or practices that discriminate based on national origin, including preferences for guest worker visa holders or Program Electronic Review Management (PERM) applicants.
• Single-sex spaces and “binary” sex expression: The EEOC seeks to clarify—and likely narrow—the scope of Bostock v. Clayton County, a decision that extended sex-based protections in the workplace to sexual orientation and gender identity. This could include, based on Chairwoman Lucas’s priorities list, women’s access to single-sex spaces and employees’ ability to express the “binary nature” of sex.
• Protection of vulnerable workers: The EEOC seeks to clarify the scope of liability under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, and will continue to protect teenage workers, low-wage workers, those with limited literacy, survivors of sexual assault, and workers with developmental or intellectual disabilities.

Practical Considerations for Employers

The NEP formalizes Chairwoman Lucas’s and the Trump Administration’s enforcement priorities. Employers should anticipate continued scrutiny of DEI initiatives, national origin-related practices, and religious accommodation refusals. Considering those developments, employers should:

• Review DEI policies and practices for use of protected characteristics in promotion, staffing, training, or compensation—including aspirational demographic targets.
• Reassess hiring practices that factor race or sex, including diverse-slate requirements, diverse hiring panel policies, or candidate “rubrics” that consider race or sex.
• Document job-related, nondiscriminatory rationales for employment decisions.
• Confirm religious accommodation procedures are robust and documented.
• Examine immigration-related practices preferencing one national origin over another.

Importantly, the EEOC’s enforcement power is not limited to the NEP’s enumerated priorities. The NEP is best viewed as a map of where the Commission intends to go, not of the outer bounds of its enforcement power.

Reinhart’s Labor and Employment Team is monitoring this new development closely. If you have any questions about how the NEP affects your business, please contact Robert Driscoll or your Reinhart attorney.