I hate brining in the dictionary, but you asked for it.
Try using one next time. Your arguments will be much stronger.
AAAAAAANd Next?
The right to do something is not the same as the right to be free from the consequences.
The statement you quoted referred to the the individual’s rights being harmed, not the individuals. Lilly’s actions do not harm anyone’s rights. As for your other question, while racial discrimination is illegal, I do believe that companies have the right to discriminate.
But once again, an individual is a person. A group of a group of people. Without the people in the organization, it does not, in reality, exist. So people act within their ethical bounds, a company doesn’t.
In any case, you are avoiding the real question by focusing on a tangent, and feeding your own vanity in the process.
But the consequences should be reasonable and legitimate.
And here, The Ryan has identified a legitimate debate. Based on what criteria should they be allowed to discriminate, or really, what on what criteria do the people in charge of the organization have the right to discriminate?
I think the criteria should be based on logic or reasonableness, not prejudice or an arbitrary rule. On what logical reason should a 10-year-old misdemeanor disqualify you for a position?
ahh, yes, my field of expertise.
First of all, AFAIK (and I’ve been working professionally for 25 years w/offenders in the community, the past 11 of which specifically on employment issues), there is no legal reason why some one’s criminal convictions cannot be held against them in the hiring process.
Some definitions are in order, tho’
The OP refers to one case which was “dismissed” and he thought had been ‘expunged’. IME, ‘dismissed’ refers to cases where no adjudication occured IOW, no finding of guilt, no plea, nothin. Those are not (to belabor the point) criminal convictions, merely arrests, and those should not be held against a person (remember Richard JEwel who was arrested for the Olympic bombings???). An expungement, OTOH, refers to a court record of a conviction (whether by guilty/nolo contende plea or finding of guilt by judge or jury), and after a set period of time, may be ‘erased’ in the sense that a routine background check for employment would not reveal it (expungement, if I understand how it would work, would always allow court officials to discover it, should the person come before them in another criminal matter later on). IN my state (MI), one can only get certain records expunged (drunk driving for example cannot be, or so said the guy I talked to yesterday), and only if there is a single conviction.
So, at the very least, my understanding of the system suggests that the data in at least one of the cases is not quite accurately represented.
As far as the OP, they ask not ‘can it be done’ but “should” it.
My own personal feeling is similar to Sofa Kings. An employer has the rights. I wouldn’t want to be in the postion of forcing some one to hire and work with a person they don’t trust because of a prior theft record, or they’re concerned may be violent etc. It wouldn’t generally be a good situation for anyone involved.
I do, however, suggest generally that employers consider hiring folks w/records because:
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although past behavior is one indication of probable future behavior, it is also true that anyone at anytime may commit either their first or last crime. So, some one w/o a record might begin their crime spree at your place, and some one with a record may have already ended theirs. ( IOW, there’ s no guarentees in life about anyone).
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With a convicted person, at least in many cases, you’ll have a specific thing to be ‘looking for’.
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The alternative, of course, to no one hiring the offender is - they’ll commit new crime, or become a burden on society in some other way. (note, I"m not telling people that they have to hire folks - just noting that humans will find a way of surviving,)
Do I believe that a minor crime many years ago automatically make some one incapable to do a job? no. But again, I’m also not willing to force an employer to hire some one who has done something they find reprehensible or makes them less trustworthy or whatever.
I have sympathy, for example, if the employer’s only child was killed by a drunk driver, that they may not wish to have drunk drivers work for them.
And, I agree (having watched hiring of convicts escalate tremendously during the boon years recently and slack of dramatically of recent times), that such considerations are not set in stone for anyone.
The problem that this company is facing is that convicted folks are, generally speaking, a ‘non sympathetic’ bunch. Look, for example, at how carefully the OP was worded, with references to a single mother hard up for cash etc, rather than “bad check artist”, “bank fraud” etc. It’s actually pretty difficult to get a criminal conviction off of one single ‘no account’ check - unless she made damn sure that no mail was ever forwarded to her etc.
but not to belabor any one of the ‘cases’, again, the generality is that some one who’s done something illegal had a choice. and, the company, when they hire Jane Smith, may really like Jane and her work, but when the next big event comes down the pipe, it’s difficult to explain in a congressional hearing why you had some one with a felony conviction in a position of trust.
And that’s what they’re facing. Nursing homes used to hire a whole lot of my folks (back in the 70’s, early 80’s), then a bunch of 60 minute type shows came through, and a few high profile criminal cases, and there were the nursing home operators being faced with Mike Wallace saying on camera “a study showed that this nursing home had 35 convicted criminals working for them. 3 with crimes such as robbery, home invasion, and weapons cases”, without the opportunity to explain that the ‘robbery’ involved a dispute between roomates regarding who really owned the CD player, the “home invasion” occured when the guy refused to leave his girlfriends house until the police came, and the ‘weapon case’ was a person who had their legally registered hand gun w/them when their car broke down in the middle of the night, and they were concerned about leaving it in the abandoned car while they went for help.