A federal judge has described Obama administration claims that
corporations use background checks to target blacks “worthless,”
describing the allegations from the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission as a “theory in search of facts” as he granted a motion for
summary judgment, which is an immediate dismissal of the case.
“There are simply no facts here to support a theory of disparate
impact resulting from any identified, specific practice of the
defendant,” wrote Judge Roger W. Titus in the case brought by the Obama
administration against Freeman Inc., a company that provides services
for expositions, conventions, corporate events, meetings and programs.
Its revenues exceed $1.3 billion annually and it employs 3,500 fulltime workers and tens of thousands of part-time workers.
The EEOC alleged that the company, by checking the backgrounds of
prospective employees, was illegally discriminating against blacks. But
the Obama administration failed to provide any evidence of that, the
judge ruled.
“While some specific uses of criminal and credit background checks
may be discriminatory and violate the provision of Title VII, the EEOC
bears the burden of supplying
reliable expert testimony and statistical analysis that demonstrates disparate impact stemming from a
specific employment practice before a violation can be found …. the EEOC has failed to do so.”
The emphasis was in the original document from the judge.
Officials with
Judicial Watch,
the Washington watchdog that seeks out corruption and reports on it,
noted the judge’s description of the Obama administration’s case as
“laughable,” “distorted,” “cherry-picked,” “worthless” and “an egregious
example of scientific dishonesty.”
“That kind of whipping from a federal judge has got to hurt though
it’s unlikely to deter the administration from spending more taxpayer
dollars to file frivolous lawsuits against employers who use the checks
to screen job applicants,” the organization reported Wednesday.
“Of interesting note is that the EEOC conducts criminal background
checks as a condition of employment and credit background checks for
most of its positions. For some reason, it’s not discriminatory against
minorities when the agency does it,” the group reported. “But it is when
private businesses utilize the tool because information about prior
convictions is being used to discriminate against a racial or ethnic
group, according to the EEOC. ”
Obama’s EEOC claimed the business “unlawfully relied upon credit and
criminal background checks that caused a disparate impact against
African-American, Hispanic, and male job applicants.”
“To support this absurd argument, the agency presented the court with
‘expert’ data, including a detailed statistical analysis, supposedly
proving its disparate impact claims,” Judicial Watch said.
But Titus found the government argument “based on unreliable data,”
“rife with analytical error,” with “a plethora of errors and analytical
fallacies” and a “mind-boggling number of errors.”
Further, it was “completely unreliable,” “so full of material flaws
that any evidence of disparate impact derived from an analysis of its
contents must necessarily be disregarded” and “distorted.”
The judge said, “By bringing actions of this nature, the EEOC has
placed many employers in the ‘Hobson’s choice’ of ignoring criminal
history and credit background, thus exposing themselves to potential
liability for criminal and fraudulent acts committed by employees, on
the one hand, or incurring the wrath of the EEOC for having utilized
information deemed fundamental by most employers.”
The judge noted there are legitimate reasons for background checks.
“For many employers, conducting a criminal history or credit record
background check on a potential employee is a rational and legitimate
component of a reasonable hiring process. The reasons for conducting
such checks are obvious. Employers have a clear incentive to avoid
hiring employees who have a proven tendency to defraud or steal from
their employers, engage in workplace violence, or who otherwise appear
to be untrustworthy and unreliable.”
The Obama administration alleged that the company, by doing
background checks, had created a “pattern or practice” of
“discrimination against African-American job applicants by using poor
credit history as a hiring criterion … and against African-American,
Hispanic, and male job applicants by using criminal history as a hiring
criterion.”
The judge went even further,
blasting the EEOC for making a “mockery” of court standards by
“continually offering new expert reports … well past the applicable
deadline.
In fact, they were “poorly disguised attempts to counter defendant’s arguments with new expert analysis.”
