The Biden administration believes it should be a federal crime to refuse to hire ex-convicts.
There is no such federal statute, but that hasn’t stopped President Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from seizing dictatorial power to impose its own decrees.
The EEOC sued Sheetz Inc. Thursday for using criminal background checks to staff its 600+ convenience stores in six states.
The agency does not allege Sheetz is biased against minorities per se — only against minorities who failed the background check.
It justifies its crackdowns on criminal background checks because black men’s imprisonment rate “was nearly 7 times higher than White men and almost 3 times higher than Hispanic men,” according to EEOC Enforcement Guidance.
John McWhorter, a black Columbia University professor, observed, “Young black men murder 14 times more than young white men.”
But according to Team Biden, there are no ex-convicts or felons — there are only “justice-involved individuals.”
The problem isn’t that some groups have much higher crime rates than others.
The problem is most businesses look at criminal records before hiring.
The EEOC claims there is no evidence that ex-convicts pose any additional threat at workplaces — even though federal statistics reveal that they are more than 10 times as likely to be arrested than average citizens.
In the Sheetz case, the agency’s court filing notes black applicants fail the criminal background checks “at a rate exceeding approximately 14.5%” while white applicants fail “at a rate of under approximately 8%.”
The racial differential in background-check failure rates was much smaller than the differential in the crime rates the EEOC used to justify its policy.
Is the agency relying on a “close enough for government work” standard for its Sheetz accusations — “exceeding approximately 14.5%” and “under approximately 8%”?
It struggles with statistics.
background checks as “laughable,” “rife with analytical error,” “completely unreliable,” “worthless” and “an egregious example of scientific dishonesty.”
What type of crimes were committed by people the EEOC claimed Sheetz should have hired?
I sought smoking guns from the agency, but it provided no information.
In previous cases, the EEOC sought to compel companies to give “back pay” to people who were never hired because they lied about their criminal records.