Civil Rights Commissioners Peter Kirsanow, Gail Heriot and Todd Gaziano pointed to research from economists Harry Holzer and Stephen Rafael and public policy professor Michael Stoll, published in the Journal of Law and Economics, which showed that employers with access to background checks are actually more likely to hire African Americans, especially African American men, than those without access to that informaion.

“Their results suggest that, in the absence of criminal background checks, some employers discriminate statistically against black men and/or those with weak employment records,” the commissioners pointed out in their letter to the EEOC.

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The federal government has launched an initiative aimed at cracking down on discriminatory hiring practices in the workplace — a program that could land unsuspecting employers in court, employment attorneys are warning….

Specifically, the EEOC will focus on hiring decisions that are based on names, arrest and conviction records, employment and personality tests and credit scores — all of which may disparately impact people of color….

Many states have laws that restrict employers from asking about or considering criminal records when hiring. The EEOC holds that if an employer denies a job to an applicant because he or she has a criminal record, it could be considered discrimination if the person is a minority.

For more on efforts to keep employers from taking applicants’ criminal records into account, see Feb. 13 and links from there (cross-posted from Point of Law).

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How well did this new policy work out, you ask? Well, when Joseph M. MacDonald, a 26-year-old resident of South Boston, applied for a job with the Boston public works department, city officials never checked his criminal record because of the new “second-chance” policy. So they never found out about his long rap sheet (three drug convictions, seven drivers’ license suspensions) until Feb. 3, when police say MacDonald, riding his city snowplow, ran down a 64-year-old woman as she crossed a street, then fled the scene. (Donovan Slack, “Hit-run suspect had long record”, Boston Globe, Feb. 7; “Records show history of offenses”, Feb. 7).

So a hard lesson has now been learned, right? You must be kidding. Although the city has admitted that it slipped up in not checking MacDonald’s driving status, Mayor Menino and one of his human resources deputies continue to defend the broader policy on ignoring criminal records (”The mayor believes firmly in giving people a second chance,” said a spokeswoman after the incident.) And both Menino and newly elected Gov. Deval Patrick intend to press ahead with a previously announced plan to limit private employers’ access to job applicants’ criminal records, the better to enforce those obligatory second chances. (Andrea Estes, “Patrick seeks to limit background checks”, Boston Globe, Feb. 12)(via No Looking Backwards). More: Coyote Blog.

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