On the same day that President Joe Biden made an impromptu campaign stop at a Pittsburgh-area Sheetz, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued the convenience store company for alleged racial discrimination.
The April 17 lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, charges that Pennsylvania-based Sheetz, Inc.’s use of criminal background checks to screen job applicants is racially discriminatory.
The EEOC does not claim that the alleged discrimination is deliberate. But the process itself, the agency claims, “causes significant disparate impact” to black, Native American, and multiracial applicants.
For example, the complaint notes that 14.5 percent of black applicants were denied employment at Sheetz due to a failed background check. Similar results were found in the cases of Native American and multiracial job seekers, while less than 8 percent of white applicants were denied jobs for the same reason….
