On July 30, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court order requiring the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to release EEO-1 reports previously withheld in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In Center for Investigative Reporting v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, the Ninth Circuit held that federal contractors’ workforce composition data is not protected “commercial” information under FOIA’s Exemption 4 and must be disclosed.

The case arose when the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) requested several years of federal contractors’ EEO-1 reports from the DOL. These reports contain aggregated demographic data, including race, ethnicity, and sex, organized by job category. The DOL initially withheld thousands of reports determining that they may contain co

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