• In August the Fifth Circuit handed down an opinion enjoining guidance on criminal records in employment issued by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, an agency to which Congress has accorded no rulemaking powers. Importantly, the opinion casts doubt on the EEOC’s powers to act by guidance in many other areas as well [Federalist Society teleforum with Mark Chenoweth and Eileen O’Connor on Texas v. EEOC]
• Trump signs “ban the box” measure that restricts criminal-record inquiries by federal contractors, not just the government itself [Thomas Ahearn, ESRCheck; Roy Maurer/SHRM]
• Also on Federal contract compliance: “Will New Executive Orders Close OFCCP’s Highway to Enforcement Hell?” [Chamber Institute for Legal Reform]
• “Europe ended its age of religious wars by carving out safe space for each of the contending faiths, guaranteeing that none of them would be able to absolutely crush the others. We ought to try that again.” [Andrew Koppelman, Balkinization on why he thinks Justice William Brennan might have preferred the “Fairness for All” bill (earlier) to the Equality Act; Scott Shackford]
• “Ohio state trooper, who is black, repeatedly sexually harasses women while on duty, gets fired. He sues, alleging racial discrimination, citing the behavior of a white trooper who was not dismissed. Sixth Circuit (over a dissent): ‘Morris Johnson and David Johnson are both troopers who acted inappropriately. And they happen to share the same last name. But the similarities end there.'” [IJ “Short Circuit” on Johnson v. Ohio Department of Public Safety]
• Virginia employment law could lurch leftward given breadth of pending legislation [Hans Bader and more]

Filed under: criminal records and hiring, EEOC, government contract compliance, sexual orientation, Virginia