In December 2025, Andrea Lucas, the chair of the U.S. Equivalent Employment Alternative Fee, invited white males to record extra sex- and race-based discrimination proceedings towards their employers.
In February 2026, the EEOC started to analyze Nike on what the company mentioned used to be suspicion of discrimination towards white employees.
Each tasks adopted the EEOC’s March 2025 characterization of variety, fairness and inclusion efforts, or DEI, as probably discriminatory towards white males. The EEOC characterization falls throughout the Trump management’s greater development of calling DEI “illegal discrimination.”
On the Middle for Employment Fairness on the College of Massachusetts, we’ve got achieved intensive analysis on who recordsdata discrimination fees with the EEOC.
Given the EEOC’s December 2025 solicitation for white males to record discrimination proceedings, we revisited our prior analysis to peer what is understood about discrimination towards white other folks and, particularly, what is understood about white and white male discrimination fees registered with the EEOC.
As a part of our analysis, the EEOC gave us get admission to to discrimination fees submitted to the company and state Truthful Employment Practices Companies from 2012 to 2016. By way of regulation, all U.S. employment discrimination claims should be submitted to the EEOC, or state businesses with an identical roles, previous to any felony movements.
Whilst the EEOC has a historical past of sharing its knowledge with researchers stretching again to the Seventies, the EEOC stopped sharing present and historic knowledge with researchers in 2016. Because of this, we shouldn’t have any knowledge on discrimination proceedings after 2016. Judging via the EEOC’s once a year reviews, the elemental patterns have now not modified a lot in the meanwhile.
White males already record proceedings
Once we checked out all sex- and race-based discrimination fees won via the EEOC, unsurprisingly we discovered that males are a lot much less most probably than ladies to record sex-based discrimination fees. However white males do record about 10% of intercourse discrimination proceedings. Whilst Black, Hispanic and Asian male staff are much more likely to record racial discrimination proceedings, white males record about 9% of such proceedings.
In the similar find out about, after we in comparison felony fees filed with the EEOC to nationwide survey knowledge, we discovered that percentages filing a felony grievance to the EEOC more or less correspond to the chances of survey-reported studies of discrimination at paintings. In combination, those two findings recommend that white other folks typically, and white males particularly, have been already submitting employment discrimination fees.
EEOC chair Andrea Lucas in December 2025 inspired white males to record extra discrimination proceedings towards their employers.
AP Picture/Mariam Zuhaib, Record
2nd, we did a deeper dive on sexual harassment fees. We discovered that whilst white males have been 46% of the exertions pressure, they filed 11% of sexual harassment fees and 11% of all different fees, maximum frequently tied to incapacity and age.
The overall development is that, whilst white males already record discrimination fees, they’re much less more likely to enjoy employment discrimination than different teams.
The danger of submitting proceedings
Fees filed with the EEOC can lead to two forms of advantages to the charging celebration: financial settlements and mandated adjustments in place of business practices.
White males who filed sexual harassment fees won some get advantages 21% of the time, less than white ladies, at 29%. That’s additionally less than Black ladies, 23%, and better than Black males, 19%. The EEOC already receives discrimination fees from white males and, a minimum of for sexual harassment, treats them in a similar fashion to different teams.
The general public who put up a discrimination fee do so that you can fortify their employment enjoy and the ones in their co-workers. However filing those claims to the EEOC or a state Truthful Employment Practices Company is a high-risk, low-reward act.
We discovered that, a minimum of for sexual harassment, employers spoke back to white males’s proceedings in a lot the similar means as to different teams. White males who filed sexual harassment discrimination fees misplaced their task 68% of the time and skilled employer retaliation at about the similar price. Retaliation can come with firing but additionally different types of harassment at paintings, comparable to abusive supervision and shut tracking via human useful resource departments.
The Nike brand is proven on a shop in Miami Seaside, Fla., on Aug. 8, 2017.
AP Picture/Alan Diaz, Record
We discovered this development of employer retaliation and employee firings for all demographic teams that record any form of discrimination grievance. White males who record discrimination fees obtain the similar harsh remedy from their employers as every other staff.
Urging extra white males to put up discrimination proceedings in line with the perceived unfairness of DEI practices, because the EEOC has achieved, is more likely to result in task loss and retaliation from employers.
What’s going to occur?
It’s conceivable that EEOC chair Lucas’ name for extra discrimination fees from white males will building up the selection of filings.
That is precisely what came about after 2012 when the EEOC dominated that the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition of intercourse discrimination additionally safe LGBTQ employees from sexual-orientation and gender-identity discrimination.
Extra regarding is the EEOC defining employer efforts to forestall discrimination and create inclusive places of work as discrimination towards white males.
In any case, all employees need to be handled somewhat and with recognize. Employer efforts to create such places of work will have to be supported. It could be a greater use of EEOC sources to improve firms’ efforts to create such places of work.
