Target Must Pay $2.8M To Settle Claims Of Unfair Hiring Practices

(Ben Schumin)

Target Corp. must pay $2.8 million to settle allegations that thousands of people lost out on a chance to be employed by the company because of certain discriminatory pre-employment assessments.

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced today that Target agreed to settle a hiring discrimination claim regarding employment assessments previously used by the retailer for exempt-level professional positions.

According to the EEOC, three evaluations used by the company were not sufficiently job-related and disproportionately screened out applications for professional positions based on race and gender, constituting a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act — which prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin, and religion.

One of the assessments used by the company, and performed by a psychologist, was found by the EEOC to be in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The Act prohibits employers from requiring that applicants undergo medical exams prior to being offered a job.

The EEOC probe also found that Target committed record-keeping violations by failing to maintain records sufficient to assess the impact of its hiring procedures.

During the EEOC’s investigation, Target discontinued use of the questionable assessments. The retailer has since made changes to its applicant tracking systems to ensure that the collection of data is sufficient to assess adverse impact, the Commission reports.

The $2.8 million payment will be split between the thousands of people the EEOC claim were passed over for positions because of the unfair assessments.

In addition to the payment, the EEOC says that Target has agreed to “retain an experienced outside consultant to provide a minimum of two hours of training at least once per year to all personnel responsible for the development and implementation of exempt assessments on the topics of record keeping, the ADA and pre-employment medical exams, and disparate impact in employment selection procedures.”

[via The Associated Press]