EEOC Releases New National Enforcement Plan

On June 4, 2026, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released its “National Enforcement Plan Fiscal Years 2025-2029” (“NEP”). The NEP rescinds the agency’s former “Strategic Enforcement Plan Fiscal Years 2024-2028” adopted in September 2023. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the NEP focuses on issues that EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has identified as core priorities. The stated purpose of the NEP is to set forth “subject matter priorities to guide all aspects of the EEOC’s work to prevent and remedy unlawful employment discrimination.” Notable items discussed and prioritized in the NEP include:

• Focus on “Overt” Discrimination. Among the EEOC’s substantive priorities, the NEP indicates that the agency will focus on job advertisements that, on account of a protected characteristic, exclude or discourage certain individuals from applying, or encourage certain individuals to apply, including, but not limited to, based on race (e.g., black, Hispanic, Asian, white, male, female, or “diverse candidates”) or other terms that are, or functionally operate, as national origin discrimination (e.g., “guest worker visa holders” or “PERM applicants”).
• DEI and Similar Initiatives Targeted. Pursuant to the NEP, the agency will prioritize programs labeled as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) or “similar euphemisms.” This includes, in the EEOC’s view, using race or sex-based quotas or “‘aspirational goals’ that are proxies for quotas” in all aspects of employment. This includes on-the-job training, internship, and mentorship programs; diverse slate policies; diverse hiring panel policies; employee race or sex data shared with managers, the public, or other non-HR personnel or legal representatives; and executive compensation or bonuses tied to employee race- or sex based demographic goals or other diversity goals.
• Developing Supreme Court Decisions. The EEOC’s stated goal is to prioritize claims involving the application or scope of recent Supreme Court decisions, including Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services (which clarified that there is no higher standard of pleading for cases by members of “majority” classes; Muldrow v. St. Louis (which expanded the scope of actionable employment decisions under Title VII to any that demonstrate “some harm”), Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (addressing the consideration of race in college admissions, which is generally understood to apply equally under Title VII), and Groff v. DeJoy (which raised the burden for employers seeking to deny a religious accommodation request as an undue hardship).
• Workplace Rights of Employees with Respect to LGBTQ Issues. The Commission will focus on “clarifying” the scope of Bostock v. Clayton County (which held that Title VII’s prohibition of sex discrimination extends to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identify) with respect to: (i) employees’ right to single-sex intimate spaces; (ii) employers’ right to provide the same; (iii) employees’ and employers’ right to express the binary nature of sex; and (iv) employees’ right to religious accommodations for sincerely held religious beliefs.
• Prioritization of Disparate Treatment Liability. While the Commission acknowledges that disparate impact liability is codified in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it takes the position that intentional discrimination (or “disparate treatment”) is a “more egregious” form of discrimination. As such, the Commission will “prioritize disparate treatment theories of liability (including pattern-or-practice liability),” eliminate the use of disparate impact liability theories in investigations “to the maximum degree possible,” consistent with Executive Order 14281, and will not commence or continue to pursue litigation advancing disparate impact claims. Note, however, that while the EEOC may not prioritize disparate impact theories of liability, it remains in both federal and many state laws and is still available to private plaintiffs who choose to bring their own case in court.
• Executive Alignment. Finally, the NEP “reaffirms” that the EEOC is an executive branch agency, not an independent or quasi-independent body, and as such will use its enforcement authority to advance the policy objectives and executive orders of the second Trump administration.

While the NEP does not offer any trenchant new insights, it does demonstrate that the EEOC will remain highly focused on items previously identified by the chair as priorities in line with administration policy and executive orders. Employers may wish to consider reviewing their own equal employment policies and procedures to ensure they are compliant with what will be the priorities of the agency for the remainder of the Trump administration.