News Clips
- September 01, 2010 | Huffington Post Credit Reports Only Where Credit is Due Congressman Luis Gutierrez discusses the use of credit checks in the employment process. Lawyers' Committee Attorney Sarah Crawford participated as a panelist in the town hall meeting mentioned in this article.
- August 30, 2010 Lawyers' Committee Attorney Participates in Chicago Town Hall on Credit Checks Lawyers' Committee Attorney Sarah Crawford participated as a panelist in a discussion on the role of credit checks in the employment process.
- August 23, 2010 | MSNBC Background checks can offer bad history lesson An article on MSNBC.com discusses credit and background checks as a hindrance to employment and the fact that some victims are fighting back via lawsuits, an example being the Census case in which the Lawyers' Committee is co-counsel for the plaintiffs. The article also explores state and national efforts to limit the use of one or both types of checks for employment purposes.
- August 20, 2010 | Washington Post Class-action suit accuses Census Bureau of bias in job screening In a Washington Post article, columnist Joe Davidson writes about Precious Daniels, a plaintiff in the Census case, and the alleged discriminatory impact of Census hiring practices. Ms. Daniels was disqualified from employment with Census because of an arrest for participation in a peaceful healthcare protest. Charges against her were dropped. The Lawyers' Committee is co-counsel in the lawsuit, Johnson et al. v. Locke.
- August 17, 2010 | Radio One Indianapolis Employment Discrimination Project Director Audrey Wiggins Highlighted Access Campaign and Discussed Class Action Lawsuit Fighting Use of Background Checks By U.S. Census with Amos Brown Audrey Wiggins updated listeners on the class action lawsuit charging that the 2010 Census’ background check procedures discriminated against Black and other minority applicants for Census jobs. Recently, evidence was presented that the EEOC told the Census that their procedures violated the law. Wiggins also told listeners about the continuing problems of background and credit checks unfairly keeping those arrested and convicted of crimes years ago from gaining employment.
- July 13, 2010 | Black America Web News Lawyers' Committee's Audrey Wiggins Quoted in 'More Employers Running Credit Checks on Applicants' The Lawyers' Committee's Audrey Wiggins was quoted in an article dealing with the impact of background and credit checks on the employment prospects of minorities.
- May 25, 2010 U.S. Supreme Court Rules that Employers Can be Held Liable for Each Use of Results of a Discriminatory Test On May 24, 2010, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision in Lewis v. City of Chicago, ruling that employers can be held liable each time they use the results of a discriminatory test.
- May 19, 2010 | theGiro Are bad background checks keeping blacks out of work? Legislation Introduced to Address Inaccuracies in FBI Database and Criminal Information Released to Employers.
- April 26, 2010 Articles about the Census Hiring Discrimination Lawsuit Read what the media is saying about the Census Hiring Discrimination Lawsuit.
- April 26, 2010 Dukes v. Wal-Mart: Ninth Circuit Permits Historic Class Action Discrimination Case to Proceed against Wal-Mart The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled 6-5 that approximately 500,000 current female employees of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may proceed as a nationwide class action with their sex discrimination in pay and promotion claims under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
- April 26, 2010 Information about the Census Hiring Discrimination Lawsuit Follow the Census Hiring Discrimination Lawsuit on Facebook and Twitter, learn more, and tell us your story by accessing these links!
- April 20, 2010 | New York Times We Can't Tell You Why Notes “A new class-action lawsuit has been filed on behalf of applicants who say they were unfairly turned down for census jobs based on an opaque screening policy that relies on F.B.I. checks for any criminal histories. Those checks are notoriously unreliable. A 2006 federal report found that half of them were inaccurate or out of date.” Making a broader policy point, the editorial concludes: “States and cities are wisely revising employment policies. The federal government needs to develop a fair and transparent screening system for job applicants and a more effective appeals process. Congress must also require the F.B.I. to verify the criminal records — and find missing data before issuing background checks.” Congratulations to Board member Adam Klein whose firm, Outten & Golden, is co-counsel on this case and to Audrey Wiggins and Sarah Crawford of the Lawyers' Committee's Employment Discrimination Project.
- April 15, 2010 | Examiner.com Lawyers' Committee Instrumental in Announcement of POWER Act Lawyers' Committee Executive Director Barbara Arnwine and Public Policy Director Tanya Clay House joined Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., and Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. during an April14th Capitol Hill press conference to announce legislation that would strengthen worker and immigrant rights, the POWER Act (Protect Our Workers from Exploitation and Retaliation).
- April 14, 2010 | Washington Post Applicants with criminal records challenge census job-screening practices
- January 18, 2010 | New York Times Denied a Chance for Honest Work Access Campaign Applauds New York's Attorney General's Efforts to Address Discrimination against Former Offenders
- October 07, 2009 Former Lawyers' Committee Employment Discrimination Expert Testifies Before Senate Judiciary on Workplace Fairness Testimony of Professor Michael Foreman, Director, Civil Rights Appellate Clinic, Dickinson School of Law, Pennsylvania State University
- July 27, 2009 | Congressional Quarterly Race Gap: Still Hard At Work Executive Director Barbara Arnwine was quoted in the July 27th issue of Congressional Quarterly regarding the need for concentrated policy reforms to address growing disparities in jobless rates between whites and minorities.
- July 03, 2009 Lawyers' Committee's Sarah Crawford Quoted on Ricci Decision Calling the decision a "real head scratcher," the Lawyers' Committee's own Sarah Crawford explained that the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci "essentially ties employers' hands."
- July 02, 2009 Lawyers' Committee's Sarah Crawford Provides Expert Analysis on Ricci Employment Discrimination Project's senior counsel, Sarah Crawford, penned a thorough analysis of Ricci v. DeStefano for the American Constitution Society's blog.
- June 29, 2009 | Legal Times More Reaction to Ricci Decision
- June 29, 2009 | USA Today Supreme Court rules for white firefighters in promotions
- June 29, 2009 | NBC White New Haven firefighters win Supreme Court case
- June 28, 2009 | New America Media Still Invisible in The Labor Force
- April 28, 2009 Sound the Alarm ... Civil Rights, Still At Risk With the historic election of Barack Obama as this nation's first African American president, we still are in a time where we must "sound the alarm" and heighten awareness of the ongoing struggle for racial justice and equality across the country as never before. The racial contradictions in our society are in many ways peaking instead of waning. Nowhere is this truer than in this term of when the U.S. Supreme Court is slated to hear nine civil rights cases, almost a record number.
- April 23, 2009 High Court Hears Argument in New Haven Firefighter Case On April 22, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Ricci v. DeStefano. This important case marks the first time in decades that the Court will examine a public employer's consideration of race in hiring or promotions. Following up on an article that appeared on the American Constitution Society's blog (http://www.acsblog.org/), Sarah Crawford, Senior Counsel for the Employment Discrimination Project, reports on the argument
- March 26, 2009 | New Haven Independent Rights Groups Back Black Firefighters
- March 16, 2009 | Voice of America US Supreme Court to Rule on Important Challenges to Civil Rights Laws
- March 05, 2009 Audrey Wiggins on Panel Discussing the Arbitration Fairness Act
