In 1985 The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) brought a suit against a small company providing janitorial and cleaning services in Chicago (EEOC v. Consolidated Service Systems). The owner of the company, a Korean immigrant, was hiring mostly Koreans. He did it by relying on word of mouth rather than traditional means of advertising. The EEOC claimed that the company was discriminating in favor of the persons of Korean origin. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 explicitly prohibits any discrimination in hiring based on “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The court was looking for any evidence of an intentional discrimination, because the mere fact that […]
