The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as an agency, feels that an employer’s use of an applicant’s criminal history in making employment decisions might be in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On December 9th, a federal court ordered the EEOC to disclose its own background check policy to an employer.  In EEOC v BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC, the EEOC filed suit on behalf of a class of 69 black employees working for a contractor that staffed a BMW-owned warehouse.  Once the contract came to completion between BMW and the contractor, the employees were required to reapply for employment via a new contractor in order to continue employment at the warehouse.  The contract though, was required to implement BMW’s own screening policy.

As a result, many black employees that had previously worked at the warehouse under the first contract were denied employment with the new contractor.  The complaint filed on behalf of these works claims that BMW’s background check policy creates a “blanket exclusion” without an “individualized assessment of the candidate or the nature of the position.”

At one point the EEOC was ordered to produce all documents that “constitute, contain, describe, reflect, mention, or refer to relate to any policy, guideline, standard, or practice utilized by the EEOC in assessing the criminal conviction record,” of a potential applicant for employment within the EEOC itself.  The EEOC refused and declined citing that the request had nothing to do with the case at hand.

The court, on the other hand, firmly disagreed with the EEOC and felt that it shouldn’t be too burdensome to turn over its own policies.

Human resource experts explain that in this case, BMW was able to present an interesting question about the EEOC’s ability to enforce its position on background checks.  Is the EEOC actually having issues with its own policy, and is it so different from every other company?