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crime and punishment First Amendment rights general freedom regulation

Criminal Discrimination?

Paul Jacob on criminalizing the avoidance of criminals.

It’s okay.

You don’t have to associate with criminals. You don’t have to employ them and worry how they’ll act on the job. It’s not your duty to give criminals or persons with a criminal record access to your life or property and hope for the best.

If only we could leave it at that. 

That’s not our world though. In our world, our government, working hard to rip America apart in every way possible, is suing the Sheetz chain of convenience stores because it doesn’t hire applicants with a criminal record.

The “problem” is that too many such failed applicants are nonwhite.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accuses Sheetz of “disproportionately screening out Black, Native American/​Alaska Native and multiracial applicants.” The agency babbles 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.”

Of course, the “disparate impact” exists not because of these classifications but because the denied applicants have criminal records. Sheetz didn’t decline these applicants because of their skin colors.

Nevertheless, Sheetz is supposed to have somehow “shown” that refusing to hire applicants with criminal records reduces Sheetz’s own risks and the risks for customers.

Elon Musk, commenting on this story, has it right: “You know The Joker is running things when the law-​abiding are being prosecuted by the government for not hiring criminals!”

These days Uncle Sam and The Joker do look alarmingly similar.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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4 replies on “Criminal Discrimination?”

Paul, if a crime has no consequences then why can it be considered a crime?
Sadly crime signals a shortsightedness and/​or lack of basic morality which is not conducive a successful employment relationship.
It is not the color of skin but the content of their character which is and rightfully at issue.

Maybe if the government didn’t hire criminals, (Yes, I’m counting House members and Senators), we wouldn;t be in this situation.
It’s nice to know that on the occasional visit to Sheetz I probably won’t be short-changed.

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