Things in this country are going to Sheetz. Fox News ran the story yesterday, headlined “
Biden admin hits Sheetz convenience store chain with lawsuit, despite campaign stop.” The sub-headline added, “Sheetz is accused of violating civil rights law with its hiring practices.” Whatever they were doing must have been pretty bad. Right?
Literally one day after Biden stopped at the Pittsburgh Sheetz convenience store last week, the Department of Justice filed a federal complaint alleging that same family-owned chain discriminates against black folks because it requires a
criminal background check in its hiring process.
These days, the EEOC refers to ex-convicts and felons as “justice-involved individuals.” I wish it were, but that is not a joke.
Public reaction has been mixed. First of all, most people do not resonate with the EEOC’s logic. According to the DOJ’s EEOC, since black folks are proportionately more likely than white people to have felony records, the background check requirement is
de facto racism, even if Sheetz’s motives are pure, and even if their only goal is to hire better employees. They call this kind of thing “disparate impact.”
EEOC attorney Debra M. Lawrence explained to the Associated Press why Sheetz’s actual motives don’t matter: “Federal law mandates that employment practices causing a disparate impact because of race or other protected classifications must be shown by the employer to be necessary to ensure the safe and efficient performance of the particular jobs at issue," she said.
That’s not all. Even if Sheetz can prove it needs to put
non-criminal employees in charge of
handling cash, the 600-store chain will still not be out of the federal persecution woods. "Even when such necessity is proven, the practice remains unlawful if there is an alternative practice available that is comparably effective in achieving the employer’s goals but causes less discriminatory effect," DOJ Debra added.
Shop at Sheetz!
Second, social media was already exploding over the Sheetz story, thanks to a few
viral videos suggesting that Biden did not receive a very warm welcome when he stopped there for a milkshake. Maybe if Sheetz had hired more convicts, Biden’s reception would have been a more heartwarming experience. You never know.
So the timing of the EEOC’s lawsuit seemed suspect, like it was payback by the Biden Campaign for Sheetz’s unenthusiasm, and perhaps a dark warning to other small businesses and convenience store chains, to clap harder whenever Biden stumbles along.
It reminds us of like those old Soviet stories about movie theater attendees standing and clapping for hours after the ending of a Stalin propaganda video, in sheer terror of being seen as the first one to stop.
According to the Fox article, Sheetz has been wrangling with the EEOC over this issue
for eight years:
"Diversity and inclusion are essential parts of who we are. We take these allegations seriously," Sheetz spokesperson Nick Ruffner said, as reported by The Associated Press. "We have attempted to work with the EEOC for nearly eight years to find common ground and resolve this dispute."
The EEOC disparate impact trick isn’t new, and it hasn’t worked particularly well, not that previous failures are stopping them. According to an article in the New York Post, in 1989, the EEOC sued a Florida trucking company for refusing to hire a Hispanic applicant with multiple arrests and a prison term for larceny. But the federal judge (himself hispanic) scoffed, holding that “EEOC’s position that minorities should be held to lower standards is an insult to millions of honest Hispanics. Obviously a rule refusing honest employment to convicted applicants is going to have a disparate impact upon thieves.”
Perhaps the most ironic and hilarious part of this Sheetzy story is that the federal government — including the EEOC which is suing Sheetz for using criminal background checks in hiring —
itself requires applicants to undergo criminal background checks:
It’s a two-tiered system of justice these days, and you and I — and Sheetz — are riding in coach class.
Liberals delirious over Trump Trial start; CNN runs a fair Trump trial op-ed; US terminator weapons; gas stations claps too softly; Supreme Court offers hope against DEI; Florida Man wins again; more.
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