Dive Brief:
- A Black job applicant who alleged that gas station chain Sheetz disproportionately screened out Black, Native American, Alaskan Native and multiracial applicants moved to continue his case June 5 after the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission abandoned it.
- EEOC filed a class-action lawsuit in April 2024 alleging that Sheetz maintained a longstanding practice of screening all job applicants for past criminal convictions and rejected those with such records. This practice violated Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, EEOC said in a press release, because it had a disparate impact on applicants of certain racial backgrounds.
- However, the agency moved to have the case dismissed last week because it determined that the disparate-impact claims would conflict with President Donald Trump’s April 23 executive order directing agencies to cease enforcement of such claims. EEOC asked the court to defer dismissal of its claims by 60 days to allow the commission to notify class members so that they could obtain private representation.
Dive Insight:
The legality of Trump’s executive order on disparate-impact claims proved contentious, with one of EEOC’s own administrative judges calling the order “highly illegal.” But the June 5 filing in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania is one of the first examples in which the order has been put into practice.
Trump said the end of disparate-impact liability enforcement was necessary because it inhibited businesses from hiring applicants on the basis of merit and skill. He also said that disparate-impact liability is unconstitutional and “threatens the commitment to merit and equality of opportunity that forms the foundation of the American Dream.”
The push to end disparate-impact liability is one of the goals stated by the conservative Heritage Foundation in its “Project 2025” presidential transition document. The organization wrote that the concept should be thrown out because under disparate-impact theory, “discriminatory motive or intent is irrelevant; the outcome is what matters. But all workplaces have disparities.”
That logic has been met with resistance by former Democratic officials of the U.S. Department of Labor and EEOC, who said in May that disparate-impact liability is explicitly outlawed under Title VII and has been upheld by U.S. Supreme Court precedent. The former officials cautioned employers that they should avoid following Trump’s executive order so they do not violate federal laws.
“Disparate impact liability is a necessary element of advancing equal opportunity for all, consistent with America’s national commitment to equal justice,” the officials wrote.
In a press release, plaintiff-side firm Outten & Golden, which is partly representing the job applicant in the Sheetz case, said EEOC had spent nearly a decade investigating the claims at issue and had found a basis to allege evidence of systemic discrimination.
“Our client has a right to be judged on his qualifications, and not to be denied a livelihood by policies that exclude people with stale convictions that are unrelated to the job,” said Ben Geffen, senior attorney at the Public Interest Law Center and a co-representative for the plaintiff, said in the press release. “When the government steps back, we step in. We will not allow political interference to wipe out hard-won legal protections.”
A similar dynamic played out following EEOC’s abandonment of several lawsuits it filed on behalf of transgender workers alleging discrimination following an executive order from Trump. Advocacy groups have since filed to intervene on behalf of plaintiffs in those cases.
