Hiring: “U.S. Born Citizens [white] who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, TX [Don’t share with candidates]” read a job posting posted in March 2023 by a tech company based in Loudoun Country, Virginia. The tech company, ‘Arthur Grand Technologies Inc.’, was looking to hire all white personnel and placed this advertisement with the third-party recruitment agency working for Arthur Grand’s subsidiary: a job site called ‘Indeed’. Screengrabs of the advertisement quickly made the rounds on the internet, prompting an investigation by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The reason for the Office’s involvement was because Arthur Grand was a contractor for the U.S. government. The vacancies advertised would have served two different clients: HTC Global, an information technology company based in Michigan and Berkshire Hathaway, a multinational holding company from Nebraska.
The issue went on to draw the attention of the Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, the Department of Justice, and the Labour Department, among others. The verdict?
“Arthur Grand discriminated based on citizenship status and national origin after a recruiter working for Arthur Grand’s subsidiary in India posted the advertisement on the job website Indeed”. According to Executive Order 11246, organisations are barred from “discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin.”
The story doesn’t quite end there, however, although the bracketed request to not share the racial specifications with candidates would have been enough to make most people cringe. Maybe even the Department of Justice’s assistant attorney general’s official rebuke would have sufficed. Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general, certainly did not mince her words: in an official statement, she had the following to say:
“It is shameful that in the 21st century, we continue to see employers using ‘whites only’ and ‘only U.S.-born’ job postings to lock out otherwise eligible job candidates of colour. I share the public’s outrage at Arthur Grand’s appalling and discriminatory ban on job candidates based on citizenship status, national origin, colour, and race”.
However, even the thickest of skins can’t help but wince at the defence Arthur Grand Inc. put up: the job posting was the handiwork of a ‘disgruntled’ Indian recruiter who had sought to embarrass Arthur Grand’s impeccable reputation. Arthur Grand had no part in either creating or authorising the posting of a job listing that deliberately discriminated against a variety of identity markers.
There are indeed many aspects in which Arthur Grand is exercising the systemic racism ingrained within the company. As emphasised by the assistant attorney general of the Department of Justice, the company managed to touch on citizenship status, national origin, colour, and race. There doesn’t appear to be much incentive for companies to avoid this behaviour in the future either. Following its investigation, the Department of Justice fined Arthur Grand a paltry $7,500 and mandated updated training on the Immigration and Nationality Act’s requirements when it comes to hiring. The company will also be paying out compensation for the applicants, which is expected to be upwards of $30,000. This compensatory element of the legal repercussions dealt out to Arthur Grand is the result of the company’s agreement with the Labor Department.
Irrespective of the efficacy of the punitive measures, Acting Director of the Department of Labor Department, Michele Hodge, had the last word on the incident.
“Over the past 58 years, OFCCP has protected workers and job seekers from workplace discrimination. We are committed to holding federal contractors accountable for outrageous discriminatory practices like this advertisement. Companies like Arthur Grand that accept federal contracts cannot have a ‘whites only’ hiring process”.
The Department of Justice will also monitor the company moving forward to ensure that among other things, the company will revise its employment practices effective immediately.
As the legal repercussions are meted out so that something close to justice is achieved, perhaps there is only one question worth answering: whether the ‘unintentional’ publishing of the sections Arthur Grand intended to be redacted was as unintentional as it supposedly was.
(Theruni Liyanage)