By Joanna Colosimo
On April 28, 2025, two members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote a letter to the Director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), Catherine Eschbach, expressing strong opposition to the revocation of Executive Order 11246 and recent workforce reductions at the agency.
In this letter, Bobby Scott, ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee, and Gerald Connolly, ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, also request a litany of information regarding the agency’s current activities, its current and future enforcement plans, and its handling of the downsizing of OFCCP.
Of the 21 items requested by May 16, 2025, the following were of particular interest:
- Information on the number of compliance cases, conciliation agreements, audits, complaints, investigations, and enforcement activities that were open under EO 11246 as of January 20, 2025, as well as the number closed or suspended since that date;
- Information on how the closures were communicated;
- Information on dual complaints, charges, and audits done in tandem with EEOC;
- Information on the cases and enforcement activities that fell under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (cases under the 15-person threshold);
- Information about whether the Memorandum of Understanding between EEOC and OFCCP is still in effect;
- Information about the agency’s upcoming enforcement plans for Section 503 and VEVRAA activities;
- Information about who is enforcing orders and compliance agreements currently; and
- Information about the number of OFCCP staff that have been terminated and justification for their termination.
- This includes an “analysis of how any staff terminations will result in elimination of waste, fraud, and abuse.”
For background, the Committee on Education and Workforce has jurisdiction over the organization, administration, and general management of the Department of Labor. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has broad authority to investigate “any matter” at “any time” under House Rules.
Misunderstood Relationship Between OFCCP and EEOC
It is interesting to note the volume of requests related to OFCCP and EEOC coordination in this letter. Project 2025, a document meant to be a conservative roadmap to the Trump administration, calls for the elimination of OFCCP, highlighting the idea that its enforcement is redundant with that of EEOC. However, legal authority and jurisdiction for OFCCP and EEOC come from different sets of laws and coordination on enforcement is not common. By requesting information about the coordination of enforcement between EEOC and OFCCP, it is possible the authors of the letter mean to draw attention to this distinction.
DCI will monitor the progress of this letter’s request, and will provide an update if information is sent from OFCCP to the House of Representatives in the coming weeks.
