The rescission of the US selection guidelines goes to final review, what does it mean for test documentation?
On 16 October 2026 the EEOC sent its final rule rescinding the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures to OIRA for review, with an effective date projected for January 2027. On the day this article appears, the OFCCP version of the guidelines also leaves the books. The article covers what changes, what does not, SIOP's position and the questions a Danish buyer should put to vendors whose validity reports rest on UGESP.
What has happened
On 16 October 2026 the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sent a final rule to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), the White House office that reviews federal rules before they can be published. The rule rescinds the interpretive portions of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures, known as UGESP, together with their appendix. This is recorded in the EEOC's entry on the federal regulatory agenda at reginfo.gov and in a 23 October review by the DirectEmployers Association.
We covered the plans at the end of September. Since then the case has moved one step forward. The regulatory agenda now lists the rule at the final rule stage, with final action projected for November 2026 and an effective date in January 2027. The agenda shows no prior proposed rule stage, and the text of the rule itself is not yet public, so its exact scope is unknown.
On the day this article appears, 26 October 2026, the Department of Labor's rescission of the regulations under Executive Order 11246 takes effect. With it goes the parallel version of UGESP that applied to federal contractors through OFCCP. Back on 31 July the Office of Personnel Management had already removed references to UGESP from the civil service regulations.
Why this is about test documentation
UGESP predates the 1991 amendments to the Civil Rights Act. It describes how an employer measures whether a test or another selection procedure disadvantages particular groups, known as adverse impact. Where a procedure shows adverse impact, the agenda entry explains, the employer must validate it and keep the validation records. The four-fifths rule, which compares selection rates between groups, sits in exactly the part now expected to be withdrawn.
That is why the matter reaches beyond the United States. Many international test publishers have built their technical manuals around these concepts. When a buyer in Denmark reads the fairness or group-difference section of a validity report, the yardstick behind it is often UGESP, even if the test is used in Aarhus or Odense. That is the editorial team's reading, not something the sources themselves address.
What does not change
DirectEmployers stresses that liability for disparate impact comes from the statute itself, Title VII, and not from the guidelines. An employer must still be able to show that a selection procedure is job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity. Private plaintiffs can still bring claims, and courts may continue to draw on UGESP principles. Professional standards, including the SIOP Principles, remain in place.
Recordkeeping requirements are handled in a separate proposal under a different docket number. That proposal has not yet been issued for public comment, and until then current obligations stand. In the agenda entry the EEOC states that the rescission does not affect how other agencies interpret and apply UGESP.
The states are partly moving the other way. According to DirectEmployers, 14 state attorneys general have issued joint guidance, and Illinois has written disparate impact liability into state law with effect from 1 June 2027.
The profession's position
The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) took a position as early as December 2025, after the presidential executive order on merit-based selection had made a rescission likely. SIOP describes UGESP as a clear, research-supported framework for employers that want to develop, validate and apply merit-based selection procedures. It warns that rescinding the guidelines without a replacement exposes employers to more legal challenges, makes those challenges harder to defend and may weaken the quality of talent decisions. SIOP published both a short policy brief for policymakers and a longer statement for its own members with recommendations for practice should the rules change.
What a Danish buyer can do now
The US rules do not apply in Denmark, but the documentation does. Three questions are worth putting to a vendor over the coming months.
First, which parts of the validity report rest on UGESP definitions, and has the vendor decided what will take their place. Second, if AI-based screening tools come with a bias audit, which yardstick was the audit built on. DirectEmployers advises US employers to review precisely those vendor contracts and audits that rely on UGESP measures. Third, can the vendor show that the test is job-related on the basis of professional standards, independent of whichever guidelines happen to be in force in the United States.
The last point matters most. A test whose documentation only holds because a particular rulebook demands it is vulnerable once that rulebook disappears. A test whose documentation holds because it is professionally sound is not.
Kilde: https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=202510&RIN=3046-AB43
Kilde: https://directemployers.org/2026/10/23/eeoc-ugesp-rescission-final-rule-oira/
Kilde: https://www.siop.org/post/siop-position-and-advice-about-the-uniform-guidelines/