Pepsi Beverages Co. is having to pay $3.1 million to settle federal charges of “race discrimination.”
But what exactly does the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claim that Pepsi Beverages did to “discriminate”?
It says the company improperly used arrest records and criminal background checks to screen out job applicants. The EEOC said barring job-seekers with convictions or arrests in their past disproportionately affected black applicants.
Under the EEOC’s rules, it can be illegal for an employer to deny a job to someone based on arrest and conviction records if those records are considered “irrelevant” to the job, The Associated Press noted.
But wait a minute! Pepsi wasn’t concerning itself with the race of job applicants but with their arrests and convictions. That’s not racist.