Trump’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently opened a federal investigation into Nike and its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives—alleging systemic discrimination against white workers. This is the first time the EEOC has targeted a large private employer with a federal investigation and subpoena explicitly linked to their DEI initiatives and hiring goals. Shortly thereafter, the EEOC sued a Coca-Cola bottling company for sex discrimination following a networking event it held for female employees. The EEOC chair closed a busy February with a letter to Fortune 500 companies, warning them about “unlawful discrimination” related to their use of DEI initiatives.

These recent EEOC actions reflect Trump’s undue control over the agency and his administration’s effective weaponization of the EEOC to fight against DEI, a broad set of programs and initiatives designed to remedy the long and well-documented history of systemic injustices against people of color and women in the labor market. Established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the EEOC has operated as an independent federal agency throughout its 60-year history enforcing employment nondiscrimination laws—until last year.

EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas has repeatedly affirmed her commitment to redirecting the EEOC’s priorities toward those of the administration; she has made the scrutiny of DEI programs and initiatives a top enforcement priority. This restructuring of EEOC priorities follows the administration’s revisionist version of history that centers white men—not people of color and women—as the primary victims of labor market discrimination. In an unprecedented move last December, Chair Lucas actively solicited discrimination complaints from white male workers, arguing that DEI initiatives function as illegal quotas that make it easier for employers to discriminate against white men. Previous EEOC chairs have avoided using their platform to solicit charges from specific demographic groups. In January 2026, the Republican majority voted to give the chair more power to decide which matters reach the full commission and to require nearly all litigation to be approved by the commissioners. The vote to centralize power with the chair and Republican majority completely neutralizes bipartisan decision-making over which cases to pursue.

Right-wing commentators have cited a now debunked report that over 90% of new corporate hires were people of color as evidence of DEI gone too far. In this post, we expose the fallacy of such claims by showing increased employment among people of color is consistent with demographic changes in the working-age population. The Trump EEOC’s targeting of employers with programs aimed at improving hiring and promotion of historically underrepresented groups defies the ongoing demographic changes of the U.S. labor force and the spirit of the Civil Rights Act that created the agency. Under current law, anyone who believes they’ve experienced discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, national origin, age, and disability can file a charge. By prioritizing so-called “reverse discrimination,” fewer of the underfunded agency’s resources will be available to investigate systemic inequities against workers of color or members of any other protected class.

DEI programs or not, the U.S. working population is increasingly more diverse and less white

 As Trump’s EEOC goes after private employers based on their efforts to improve workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion, it is important to understand that non-Hispanic white workers are a smaller share of the U.S. workforce than they were decades ago. In 1989, for example, more than 3 out of 4 people between the ages of 16 and 64 were white (see Figure A). This share declined by 28% over the course of the last three decades. In 2025, just over half (55.4%) of the U.S. working-age population was white. People of color, on the other hand, have become an increasing share of the working-age population since 1989.

Last year, more than 2 in 5 individuals between the ages of 16 and 64 were either Hispanic, Black, or Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI). This figure nearly doubled between 1989 and 2025. A significant share of this growth can be attributed to the growth of the Hispanic working-age population, which nearly tripled over the course of the last three decades with increased immigration.

This demographic shift is most evident among younger workers—the new hires who will gradually replace less diverse cohorts of older workers as they retire. Nearly 1 in 2 individuals between the ages of 16 to 24 are either Black, Hispanic, AAPI, or American Indian and Alaska Native (see Figure B), up more than 80% since 1989. Based on these numbers, it is only logical that historically underrepresented groups of workers account for a larger share of employment now and in the future than they did decades ago—regardless of DEI initiatives. In fact, workplaces that reflect the growing diversity of the labor force are a sign of less discrimination, not of a bias against white workers. Moreover, employers who set and pursue DEI goals that develop the talent and career growth of workers of color are making forward-looking investments in the leadership of the future workforce. This has been a primary motivation and justification for many DEI initiatives.

Despite the growing diversification of the U.S. workforce, EEOC data suggest that people of color continue to be underrepresented in leadership positions

While Trump’s EEOC targets and accuses employers with equity initiatives of bias against white workers, demographic statistics reported to the regulatory agency paint a different picture when it comes to representation in leadership roles. Private employers with 100 or more employees and federal contractors with 50 or more employees are required to file an annual EEO-1 report. These data are used to support EEOC enforcement efforts and can raise flags about systemic patterns of discrimination. Based on publicly available EEO-1 data for 2023 (latest year), white workers are significantly more likely to be overrepresented in leadership positions (see Figure C). In 2023, for example, Black, Hispanic, AAPI, and AIAN workers accounted for more than 40% of workers in all job categories at EEO-1 reporting firms, but only about 1 in 5 employees in executive- or senior-level positions. Similarly, less than 1 in 3 workers in mid-level, managerial positions identified as Black, Hispanic, AAPI, or AIAN in 2023.

Table 1 presents the 2023 data along with data for 2020—the year several private employers launched DEI initiatives in response to the racial reckoning that followed the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police officers—and 2017. While it is impossible to disentangle DEI from demographic and pandemic effects based on these data alone, we can see changes in the racial composition of employees at EEO-1 reporting firms over these years that are generally consistent with changes in the working-age population shown in Figure A. More importantly, nothing in these statistics points to evidence of systemic “DEI-motivated discrimination” against white workers. Relative to the preceding three years, between 2020 and 2023, there was a larger increase in the share of all people of color employed in executive-/senior- level and first-/mid-level management positions—3.7 and 3.3 percentage points, respectively—but white workers remained significantly overrepresented in these roles. Throughout the entire period, Black and Hispanic workers remained grossly underrepresented relative to their share of all positions.

The Trump EEOC’s intentional diversion of attention and resources away from more prevalent forms of discrimination will hurt all workers

Aggregate results alone neither qualify nor disqualify a charge of discrimination against a specific employer. All charges, whether filed by an individual or an EEOC commissioner, are individually investigated— a process involving extensive information gathering and detailed examination of the facts to assess the merits of the charge. The administration’s aggressive search for evidence of “reverse discrimination” diverts the limited resources of an already understaffed and underfunded agency away from investigating more prevalent forms of racial and gender discrimination that are consistent with persistent racial and gender wage gaps and patterns of occupational segregation.

It would be a mistake to assume that Trump and the Republican majority leading the EEOC don’t understand the nature of demographic changes in the U.S. population and labor market. The administration’s campaign against DEI initiatives and accusations of bias against white male workers represent an emboldened assertion of white supremacy to stoke fear and to recast growing racial, ethnic, and gender diversity as a threat to social and economic advantages historically afforded to white men. This is a strategy that has often led to periods of slower economic growth and greater economic inequality. In the end, it not only makes the American workplace less fair, but it also risks lowering the standard of living for all working people and their families.