In 2007, America had suffered the biggest economic crisis in decades. In 2008, the recession has cemented its mark in America's history as the greatest industrial and global tragedy in the financial world. With businesses beginning to bloom and employment slowly gaining traction, now, the country is beginning to heal.
However, racial discrimination prevented thousands of African American and Latino job applicants to remain unemployed because of a flawed criminal background checking system. This flaw has reportedly cost the Census Bureau $15 million dollars, as told by Think Progress.
Previously, there were one million temp jobs available to Americans that were hit the hardest by the recession. According to Outten Golden, 850,000 applicants that were African American or Hispanic were denied employment because the FBI flagged them with criminal backgrounds. In order to turn around this flag, applicants were required to procure and file FBI documents to explain their records. Thousands of Americans were unable to make this turn-around because they were unable to meet the 30-day deadline required.
In 2014, applicants felt their rights were violated and filed a lawsuit against the Census Bureau. According to attorneys looking into the employment case, there is a possibility that the FBI's database used "incomplete" or "under reported" information. The plaintiffs argued that the federal agency violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which "prohibits employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
Now, the United States Department of Commerce has reached a settlement for the Census Bureau. The settlement named $15 million as the amount to be settled. Most of the money will be going to the improvement of the background checking system and various attorney fees. The attorneys in the case hope that the Bureau will replace its "racially discriminatory use of criminal records and develop a rational job-related method to determine whether an applicant has a criminal history which justifies his or her rejection from these essentially entry level jobs."
