The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) posted a notice on the agency’s website in early February announcing that the agency will release EEO-1 reports from 2016 – 2020 for those federal contractors and sub-contractors that did not object to the release of their reports. OFCCP stated that the reports are scheduled to be released “on or about February 8, 2023.”
OFCCP will be releasing consolidated (“Type 2”) reports for employers that have multiple establishments. The notice to release all Type 2 EEO-1 reports is part of OFCCP’s response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made by the Center for Investigative Reporting. The FOIA request for these Type 2 reports was originally made in 2019 by Will Evans, a senior reporter at the Center for Investigative Reporting. The original request asked for the release of Type 2 EEO-1 reports for the year 2016. The request was subsequently amended multiple times, most recently in 2022, to include reports from all federal contractors and first-tier subcontractors from 2016 through 2020.
As covered in our previous blog, on August 19, 2022, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs published a formal notice in the federal registrar providing all covered contractors an opportunity to object to the disclosure of such information under FOIA Exemption 4. All federal contractors and sub-contractors had 30 days from the date of that notice to object to the release of their reports. This deadline was later extended until October 19, 2022.
OFCCP is requesting employers to respond to the agency if they believe that they were erroneously required to provide EEO-1 reports. An employer must show that either
- The employer was not a federal contractor or subcontractor during the relevant period or
- The employer previously submitted an objection to the disclosure of the EEO-1 data
To file an objection, an employer should reach out to OFCCP’s at OFCCP-FOIA-EEO1-Questions@dol.gov. The agency has asked employers to include information supporting their reasons for objecting to the release. Responses must be submitted no later than 11:59 pm EST on February 7, 2023. The OFCCP notice includes a list of federal contractors and subcontractors that did not object to the release of the Type 2 EEO-1 reports.
