Articles

Victory in EEOC v. Freeman; strong rebuke for the EEOC

February 20, 2015 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

This morning the Fourth Circuit rejected the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s latest attempt to expand disparate impact law.  In EEOC v. Freeman, the government brought suit against a company that ran employee applicants through criminal background checks before hiring them. The EEOC alleged that Freeman’s criminal backgro ...

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"An egregious example of scientific dishonesty"

April 08, 2014 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

Back in August I reported on a case out of the federal district court in Maryland, where the EEOC was trying to stop a business from undertaking criminal background checks on job-applicants.  In EEOC v. Freeman, the district court rejected the EEOC’s disparate impact lawsuit, because the data it collected was woefully insufficient.  In a & ...

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EEOC suffers another smackdown by federal court

August 13, 2013 | By JOSHUA THOMPSON

Earlier this year, we discussed the pernicious use of “race-raters”  by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in EEOC v. Kaplan.  In that case, Kaplan began doing credit checks on applicants seeking positions of trust within the company, but refused to ask the applicants to indicate their race.  The EEOC found this race-neutra ...