The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has released a new four-year, 2025-2029 National Enforcement Plan (“NEP”), replacing the Strategic Enforcement Plan adopted under the Biden administration. The plan details the mission and priorities of the current EEOC, and “reaffirm[s] the agency’s unwavering commitment to merit-based, evenhanded enforcement,” according to EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas.[1]
The overarching “Chair Priorities” of the NEP are “remedying DEI-related race and sex discrimination,” “protecting American workers from Anti-American national origin discrimination,” “defending women’s rights to single-sex spaces at work and workers’ right to express the binary nature of sex,” and “protecting workers’ religious liberty to receive religious accommodations and be free from religious discrimination, harassment, and related retaliation.”[2] The NEP underscores the EEOC’s role as a national enforcement agency and emphasizes the prioritization of disparate-treatment claims over disparate-impact theories.
The NEP’s substantive priority list expands on the types of actions the EEOC plans to bring. The Commission will focus on intentional-discrimination claims tied to company-wide policies, including programs the agency views as unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. The NEP provides examples of the unlawful DEI practices that the EEOC seeks to target, including (i) job advertisements that encourage or discourage individuals from applying based on protected characteristics (specifically those containing terms like “diverse candidates” or “guest worker visa holders” or “PERM applicants”); (2) staffing agencies—including fellowships and similar programs operating as staffing agencies—that exclude individuals from employment on the basis of protected characteristics; (3) company-wide policies or practices that the EEOC has determined violate antidiscrimination employment laws, such as the use of race- or sex-based quotas, including “aspirational goals,” in decision-making in interviewing, hiring, layoffs or any other employment action; and (4) steering individuals into particular jobs or job duties based on protected characteristics.
The plan also ties enforcement to recent Supreme Court decisions regarding workplace bias, including Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, which found there is no heightened burden under Title VII for majority-group plaintiffs to prove they faced discrimination, Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, which established the “some harm” threshold for adverse-action claims, and Groff v. DeJoy, which created a heightened employer obligation to accommodate religious practice. The NEP confirms that, while the EEOC will still bring enforcement actions for claims involving Bostock v. Clayton County’s protection against sexual-orientation and gender-identity discrimination, the Commission will clarify the scope of the decision with respect to workers’ and employers’ right to “express the binary nature of sex.”
In light of the release of the NEP, employers should audit DEI-adjacent programs for facially neutral, merit-based criteria. Documenting the legitimate, non-discriminatory basis for each policy and decision remains the most reliable defense to the categories of claims the EEOC has now listed as enforcement priorities.