A Snag in EEOC's Plans to Regulate Background Checks

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission  is a bipartisan Commission that enforces employment discrimination laws. One of their most recent oversight efforts has been to engage in lawsuits aimed at businesses who use background checks to rule out applicants with criminal records. The EEOC claims that certain policies and procedures followed by companies are an act of discrimination against certain minorities. Lawsuits against Dollar General and a U.S. unit of BMW are pending;  however, on August 9th, a lawsuit filed in 2009 by the EEOC against Freeman Companies was resolved last week.

Freeman Companies, an event-marketing company, may have set precedent for several other similar cases when a Federal District Judge dismissed the case brought by the EEOC.  The Judge's opinion letter stated there was a lack of facts and error-ridden statistics. There was no evidence to prove that Freeman Companies, a company that employs 30,000+ people of varying races and backgrounds, was discriminating against African Americans or Hispanic applicants. While this is but a single ruling, this case will certainly have long reaching effects on the efforts of the EEOC’s plan to enforce their opinion on how background checks are used by companies.

Companies should be allowed to protect their primary assets.... their employees and their customers. The refusal to hire an applicant with a relevant, past conviction is not the same as racial discrimination. Safeguarding a company and its employees from violence, fraud, harassment, etc. is a perfectly reasonable course of action. The recent rulings may play a huge factor in the EEOC’s attempts to regulate the use of background checks. This is a victory of sorts for companies that want to maintain a safe workplace and protect their bottom line.

How do you feel about the ruling? 

How do you think it will affect the EEOC’s attempts to enforce their opinion on how background checks should be used by companies? 

Man Denied Job Over 20-Year-Old Criminal Conviction, Wins Discrimination Lawsuit

A job applicant for a temporary staffing agency was denied a position over a record from the 1980's.  He filed a discrimination case against the temporary staffing agency and won. 

“Employment policies that impose a blanket exclusion on people with past convictions, without any consideration of the relationship of the conviction to the job in question, can constitute unlawful discrimination," Jennifer Clarke, executive director of the Public Interest Law Center of Philadelphia, said in a press release.

The nonprofit law center helped the man file the employment discrimination lawsuit, which explains why denying an applicant employment based on their criminal record violates the law:

"While such policies are facially neutral, they produce severe disparate impact on racial minorities, including African-American, Native Americans and Latinos, because of the significantly higher rates of criminal convictions experienced by these populations."

Recently Pepsi settled a similar case for $3.1 million dollars for using arrest records that kept approximately 300 people from getting a job.

"More companies are getting sued because of their inconsistent hiring policies, using arrest records, and using convictions that are not within the Federal or State guidelines or inconsistently applying the law", says Bill Whitford, CEO of S2Verify.  "Companies need to review their policy and framework around hiring to adjust to these actions and lawsuits"