It would take a heart of stone not to chuckle at the White House's recent squirming over the results of having "disparate impact" reasoning used against them in re their practice of underpaying female staffers. Now the same amusing spectacle is playing itself out in a lawsuit by the EEOC against Kaplan, Inc., the private test-prep and for-profit education company. The Sixth Circuit recently poured out the EEOC's complaint that Kaplan was using the same background checks on prospective employees that the EEOC itself uses. The EEOC had argued that criminal record and credit checks had a disparate impact on minority applicants.
Can you imagine Kaplan trying to defend itself against a suit by customers whose financial information was stolen by Kaplan employees with access to their student loan records? "Yes, we could have run routine background checks, but that might have been unfair to minority applicants." How can anyone even argue with a straight face that it's racially discriminatory to consider criminal and credit records for prospective employees? What mental gymnastics are required to ignore the implications of that assumption?
How can anyone even argue with a straight face that it's racially discriminatory to consider criminal and credit records for prospective employees?
ReplyDeletePathological liars can do so quite easily. Just as Attorney General Holder can argue against Voter ID in Texas, while he speaks at a NAACP event in Houston which requires showing ID for admission. Just as some can claim that the "disparate" numbers of black students subject to school disciplinary action is evidence of racial discrimination. But how many of those black students were disciplined by black teachers and administrators?
Holder's mistake was in not enlisting Kevin Murphy's expertise to vet the racial balance of his audience.
ReplyDeleteEric Hines
By summary judgment, no less. The WSJ article is behind a firewall, so here is another cite.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/307614/employee+rights+labour+relations/Sixth+Circuit+Affirms+Summary+Judgment+Against+EEOC+in+Credit+Check+Suit
This sets up a claim for attorney's fees by Kaplan, and I hope they get them, with the names of the EEOC lawyers in the text of the opinion.
Kaplan got sued for running completely legitimate credit checks, that do not collect racial information:
"By way of background, Kaplan runs credit checks on applicants for senior executive and financial positions. As part of the check, a third-party vendor flags for Kaplan's consideration such items as bankruptcy filings, delinquency on child support, garnishment on earnings, outstanding civil judgments, and Social Security numbers that do not match the number the credit bureau has on file. Although the vendor's report does not classify the applicant's race, the EEOC maintained that a disproportionate number of African-Americans were singled out for scrutiny based on their credit histories. "
Look at the linked article for the following:
"Ten states—California, Maryland, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Washington, Oregon, Vermont, Colorado, and Nevada—and at least two localities—Chicago (IL) and Madison (WI)—have restricted the use of credit checks in hiring and personnel decisions. "
Valerie