The World Turned Upside Down

WWTFT readers may recall we wrote about this in February of this year.  Now the Obama administration has taken it to the next level, using the power of the federal government to enforce their insane policies in the courts.

The Obama administration is suing Dollar General and a BMW facility in South Carolina for the alleged unfair use of criminal background checks for job applicants, months after warning companies about how such screenings can discriminate against African Americas.

The suits were filed June 11 by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which last year issued new guidelines that cautioned against rejecting minority applicants who have committed a crime and recommended businesses eliminate policies that “exclude people from employment based on a criminal record.”

These new guidelines are now being tested to see if they have teeth.    Whatever happened to “the content of their character?”  Shouldn’t a business be able to hire people based on their abilities and qualities?

… the update was issued out of concern that employers might disproportionately exclude minorities from getting hired because more African Americans and Hispanics are getting arrested and going to prison, according to the guideline report.

This can be described as nothing other than stupidity (or evil).  Businesses are being put in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” position.

“The lawsuits are certainly a very public demonstration” of the EEOC’s decision to change the guidelines, Elizabeth Milito, of the National Federation of Independent Business, told FoxNews.com. “Background checks are essential to businesses large and small. And now they feel like they are in a no-win situation.”

Milito lays out the dilemma in which a company does not run a criminal check and risks having a new hire with a violent criminal history assault a co-worker, or run a check and face a federal lawsuit.

“People are confused, afraid and saying I could get sued either way,” she said.

via Feds file civil rights suits on companies using criminal background checks for hires | Fox News.