Both federal law and New Jersey law generally bar disparate impact discrimination, which occurs when an employer’s action has a disproportionately harmful effect on people of a protected class. These actions may often target employer standards, practices, or rules that seem to be neutral but, in function, end up disparately harming people like women, Black workers, Latinos, older workers, etc. If you’ve encountered an employment practice like that and suffered harm as a result, then you may have a viable discrimination case, and you should contact a knowledgeable New Jersey employment discrimination lawyer to find out more.
J.R. and E.J. allegedly were two of those people harmed as a result of racially discriminatory hiring. J.R. was both Black and Latina and applied for employment with Walmart in 2020. Prior to applying, the New Jersey woman had completed an internship with a Walmart subsidiary in Hoboken, according to her complaint. Allegedly, she did the same entry-level IT support work at the subsidiary that she would have performed with Walmart and was successful enough that her supervisor suggested that she apply to Walmart.
The woman’s interviews were successful and Walmart extended an offer of employment, only to rescind that offer just a few days later. The retraction was the result of content the employer found on the applicant’s criminal history. At some point earlier in J.R.’s life, she had been arrested. According to her complaint, she was “with friends who committed the crime in question,” and she pled guilty to a felony charge as part of a plea bargain because she feared “receiving a lengthy prison sentence” if she went to trial.