(DailyVantage.com) – The administration of President Joe Biden has sued Sheetz, a popular convenience store chain in Pennsylvania, over the company’s criminal background checks policy, which the White House claims is racist towards members of the black community.
Ironically, the president recently made a campaign stop at one of its stores as Biden works to win voters to his side in a section of the U.S. that has historically been a swing state. The president posed for photos after buying some snacks and talked to customers and employees who happened to be in the store at the time.
Sheetz is facing allegations leveled against it by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which alleges that minority applicants typically get the short stick when they apply for jobs in the company. The EEOC further claims that Sheetz’s background check process discriminates against black people, Native Americans, as well as multiracial applicants.
The agency cited statistics showing that Sheetz rejected 14.5% of the job applications of black job hunters for allegedly failing its background check process. In comparison, only less than 8% of white job seekers were rejected over the same issue. While the EEOC does not accuse the convenience store chain of intentional discrimination, the policy still supposedly violates DEI (diversity, equality, and inclusion) laws. According to the EEOC, the company has been using its discriminatory hiring process since early 2015.
For its part, Sheetz officials said that “discrimination of any kind” was not tolerated at any level in the company. The company said that it is taking the EEOC’s lawsuit seriously and was willing to cooperate with the agency to resolve the problem.
Shetz is a family-owned and privately run company comprised of several gas stations and convenience stores in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio, and Maryland. The company employs around 23,000 workers.
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