Dive Brief:
- Arthur Grand Technologies must change its approach to hiring and provide $31,000 in worker relief after the company posted a job ad that specified it would only hire White candidates, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. It also must pay a $7,500 civil fine.
- DOJ determined the Virginia-based employer posted a job ad on Indeed last year limiting eligible candidates to “Only Born US Citizens [White] who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, TX [Don’t share with candidates].” (Editor’s note: Brackets appeared in the original ad.) The advertisement said the role would serve two clients: HTC Global, an information technology company based in Troy, Michigan, and Berkshire Hathaway.
- “It is shameful that in the 21st century, we continue to see employers using ‘whites only’ and ‘only US-born’ job postings to lock out otherwise eligible job candidates of color,” Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement. The employer reached a separate agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor, DOJ said.
Dive Insight:
According to DOJ, Arthur Grand violated the Immigration and Nationality Act, which prohibits unlawful discrimination based on citizenship and national origin in hiring, as well as Executive Order 11246, which prohibits federal contractors from identity-based discrimination, including race, color and national origin.
The Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section started its investigation last year, following media buzz around Arthur Grand’s racist job description. The company at the time said the job post was not authorized, according to reporting from The Dallas Morning News.
In a press release, the DOJ emphasized that Arthur Grand’s actions harmed workers who have the right to work in the U.S. by “unlawfully deterring them.”
The Labor Department and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are the federal agencies typically front-and-center in workplace discrimination claims. Still, the DOJ frequently handles such cases, particularly when national origin bias is at play as it is tasked with enforcing the INA.
Last August, the department secured a settlement for workers affected by a Miami glass manufacturer’s alleged anti-immigrant hiring practices, ordering Mr. Glass Group to pay $120,000 in civil penalties. And DOJ announced in February that it entered into a settlement agreement with a Hanover, Maryland-based staffing company, which allegedly harmed “lawful permanent resident workers, non-citizen national workers and workers who have been granted asylum or refugee status” with talent practices which barred them from job opportunities. The Civil Rights Division ordered Latitude Inc. staffing to pay an unspecified amount in civil penalties.
Similarly, Arthur Grand must train its workers on INA requirements and rework its hiring policy; it will also be subject to DOJ monitoring. Likewise, Arthur Grand must compensate the workers who filed complaints with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, under the DOL agreement.
The technology company has committed to offering workplace-specific training for all staff involved in recruiting, reviewing and hiring job candidates, the press release said. “Over the past 58 years, OFCCP has protected workers and job seekers from workplace discrimination. We are committed to holding federal contractors accountable for outrageous discriminatory practices like this advertisement,” Michele Hodge, acting director of the federal contract compliance office, noted in the May 23 statement.
In remarks celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Civil Rights Division’s inception, Clarke noted that, in part, “because of cases we litigated and policies we pursued, whites-only buses no longer roll past Black children walking to school.”
“But despite the progress, we know that the Civil Rights Division is needed now more than ever,” Clarke said. “The racial hatred that required deployment of 31,000 troops in 1962 still persists today.”
