The Biden Administration can’t be any clearer about whose side they are on, and it’s not yours.
In a move only mildly surprising in an election year in which crime is one of the major issues, Biden’s Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is suing the convenience store Sheetz (should be named Sheez! after this) for using a criminal background check before hiring employees.
Biden had just visited one of the Sheetz stores in Pennsylvania in a vain attempt to show that he is in tune with the common man.
You Can’t Make This Up!
Just after President Biden visited a Pittsburgh, PA. area Sheetz Gas Station and Convenience Store during a campaign stop, the Feds have announced a lawsuit by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against the company for discriminating against… pic.twitter.com/ceOOaQJEed
— Conservative Brief (@ConservBrief) April 21, 2024
As with many of you, I am sympathetic to giving reformed criminals a second chance, and as with many of you I realize that hiring criminals poses a risk to the employer. Simply put, second chances are a great idea, but probably not in places where the risks to the public or the employer are relatively high. Certainly employers should have a say in the matter.
But this logic has been thrown out the window–for over a decade now there has been a movement to ban criminal background checks on employees. Minnesota has a “ban the box” law preventing employers from asking about criminal history.
Biden, it seems, is all on board with this because criminals are a favored class these days.
The Sheetz convenience store chain has been hit with a lawsuit by federal officials who allege the company discriminated against minority job applicants.
Sheetz Inc., which operates more than 700 stores in six states, discriminated against Black, Native American and multiracial job seekers by automatically weeding out applicants whom the company deemed to have failed a criminal background check, according to U.S. officials.
President Joe Biden stopped by a Sheetz for snacks this week while campaigning in Pennsylvania.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit in Baltimore against Altoona, Pennsylvania-based Sheetz and two subsidary companies, alleging the chain’s longstanding hiring practices have a disproportionate impact on minority applicants and thus run afoul of federal civil rights law.
Ironically, even the EEOC admits that Sheetz doesn’t discriminate based on race; it’s just that darker people happen to commit more crimes, and since that it is the case we are forced to reward criminals.
It’s bizarre. It’s not like skin color determines criminal behavior, and it certainly isn’t the case that criminals are contributing members of society. If minorities are committing crimes and that is hurting their job prospects, perhaps they should quit committing crimes.
Just a thought.
Unless the Biden Administration wants to assert these two propositions, then the logic makes no sense to me: 1) minorities are incapable of behaving like civilized human beings, and 2) behaving like civilized human beings is not necessary to participate fully in civilization.
I reject both these propositions.
Criminals are not irredeemable; at least, many of them are not. Finding ways to reintegrate them into society is a worthy goal.
It is also a goal that shouldn’t be pursued by forcing private individuals to disproportionately bear the burden. If we as a society want to take on this burden by finding a smoother path to reintegration- something that, if possible, makes a lot of sense and which we currently do poorly- we should do it as a society.
This policy puts all the burden and liability on individual employers.
The sad fact is that we don’t rehabilitate criminals; we incarcerate them and then drop them back into society, rarely reformed. Employers are right to screen them out in most circumstances.
I have a suggestion: the White House should stop conducting background checks on its household staff. I am sure the Secret Service would be all for that.
Disproportionate impact shouldn’t matter if there is a rational basis for the requirement, and not hiring potential criminals is a rational basis for decisionmaking.
If you don’t want to face consequences, don’t commit the crime.