DOJ, Companies Reach Penalty Deal for Biased Job Ads

On May 23, 2023, the DOJ announced that it had secured ten additional settlements, which total $464,360, with companies that posted job advertisements that unlawfully discriminated against non-U.S. citizens on a college recruiting platform.  Including the twenty agreements entered into with other companies for similar claims in 2022, the total civil penalty amount for using a college recruiting platform to post job advertisements that excluded non-U.S. citizen students from those employment opportunities now exceeds $1.6 million.  The DOJ expressed that these settlements should reflect the department’s “commitment to enforcing federal civil rights law to ensure that all applicants have a fair and equal chance to compete for jobs.”

The DOJ’s initial investigation began after a college student, who was a legal permanent resident at the time, filed a complaint with the department’s Civil Rights Division’s Immigrant and Employee Rights Section, accusing a company of discriminatorily restricting a paid internship position advertised on the college’s recruiting platform.

Each company’s recruiting staff must also receive training on the Immigration and Nationality Act’s anti-discrimination provision, which generally proscribes employers and recruiters from restricting jobs based on citizenship or immigration status, except as required by law, regulation, executive order, or government contract.