---
url: 'https://www.fmjlaw.com/equal-employment-opportunity-its-still-the-law/'
title: 'Equal Employment Opportunity: It’s (Still) the Law'
author:
  name: Adam
  url: 'https://www.fmjlaw.com/author/adam-brownfmjlaw-com/'
date: '2025-04-23T22:14:02+00:00'
modified: '2025-09-30T18:29:07+00:00'
type: post
summary: Plus discussion of the current status of Affirmative Action Plans.
categories:
  - Article
  - Thought Leadership
tags:
  - Affirmative Action
  - EEOC
published: true
---

# Equal Employment Opportunity: It’s (Still) the Law

Despite recent news headlines that may have intentionally or unintentionally indicated otherwise, the federal government has not abolished all Affirmative Action regulations, and companies that were required to have Affirmative Action Plans prior to 2025 may still be required to maintain portions of those plans, at least for the time being.

Earlier this year, President Trump revoked Executive Order 11246 (“EO 11246”), a 1965 regulation that prohibited federal contractors and subcontractors from engaging in employment discrimination and required them to take affirmative action to promote equal employment opportunity for women and minorities. EO 11246 was a significant influence for other affirmative action laws and related initiatives in the sixty years that followed its implementation. One of the major requirements under EO 11246 was the obligation to implement an affirmative action program (“AAP”) and update the plan document each year, which historically has been a complex and expensive annual undertaking for federal contractors.

Key required components of an AAP included an organizational profile detailing the company’s workforce demographics, a workforce analysis to identify utilization of the four affirmative action categories (women, minorities, protected veterans, and individuals with disabilities), establishment of utilization goals in any job groups where such categories are underrepresented, establishment of action items to achieve such goals, specific recruitment and outreach strategies, and implementation of a monitoring and evaluation process to track progress and ensure compliance. EO 11246 also created the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance (“OFCCP”), which is the regulatory body that issues and enforces affirmative action rules for federal contractors and subcontractors.

The revocation of EO 11246 was one part of President Trump’s Executive Order 14173, issued on January 21, 2025 and colloquially dubbed “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” (“EO 14173”). Among other directives, EO 14173 made it unlawful for federal contractors to consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion or national origin in their employment decisions. It also ordered the OFCCP to immediately cease the following:

- Promoting “diversity;”

- Holding federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking “affirmative action;” and

- Allowing or encouraging federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.

In short, the above directives eliminated federal contractors’ AAP obligations relating to race and gender, and they halted any OFCCP enforcement efforts relating to the same. Going even further, EO 14173 directed federal agencies to require certification from federal contractors and grant recipients that they will not operate any illegal DEI programs. These and numerous other provisions of EO 14173 are explained in more detail on the official White House summary page for the order, which can be found [here](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity/).

Importantly, however, EO 14173 only eliminated the affirmative action obligations that were imposed by EO 11246. Federal contractors and subcontractors are also required to comply with affirmative action requirements pertaining to individuals with disabilities (under Section 503 of the Rehabilitation Act) and protected veterans (under the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, or “VEVRAA”). Both Section 503 and VEVRAA are codified in federal statute and remain in effect. Furthermore, a number of states, including Minnesota, have implemented their own AAP requirements for businesses that contract with state agencies. What remains unclear for now is whether federal contractors will need to certify their AAP compliance through the OFCCP website going forward – last year’s certification portal opened on April 1, 2024 and closed on July 1, 2024. The OFCCP has not stated whether the portal will open this year.

Additionally, businesses with 100 or more employees (and federal contractors with 50 or more employees) must still maintain ethnicity, race, and gender data for each employee in order to comply with EEO-1 annual reporting requirements in accordance with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. While the web page that previously housed the EEO-1 data collection portal is currently unavailable, the [proposed 2024 EEO-1 Component 1 Data Collection Instruction Booklet](https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/DownloadDocument?objectID=156685300) (link to an external download PDF file) states that the 2024 EEO-1 filing platform will open on May 20, 2025 and close on June 24, 2025.

Businesses that were covered under the now-revoked EO 11246 were given 90 days to come into compliance with the new directives and scale back their affirmative action and DEI efforts as required under EO 14173. That 90-day grace period ended this week on April 21, 2025, and the newly-appointed Director of the OFCCP, Catherine Eschbach, has indicated that the agency intends to focus on ensuring that federal contractors wind down any employment practices that are now prohibited under EO 14173.

As the legal framework around affirmative action continues to evolve, businesses that contract with federal and/or state government agencies will need to be sure that their practices are in compliance with any ongoing affirmative action obligations that apply to their organization. Businesses that are still required to maintain an affirmative action plan should consult with their legal counsel or other affirmative action advisors to make sure that their plan does not contain provisions that would run afoul of the complex restrictions imposed by EO 14173.

FMJ’s HR & Employment Law Practice Group is available to help draft your organization’s affirmative action plans, audit your organization’s hiring and affirmative action plan practices, assist with affirmative action plan audits, create and implement strategies for the future, and train your staff on new policies related to hiring practices. If you are interested in connecting with an attorney to discuss questions or concerns about any of these new changes, or any other HR and Employment law matters, please reach out to [Natolie Hochhausen](https://www.fmjlaw.com/professional/natolie-s-hochhausen/) or anyone else in our [HR & Employment Law Practice Group](https://www.fmjlaw.com/practice-area/hr-employment/).

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