Lawsuit over ‘diversity’ hiring

A Midland, Texas man has filed a class action reverse-discrimination
lawsuit against the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission, charging that he was unfairly passed over
for employment because he is white.

In his suit, Charles Hall claims that he would have been offered a
job at the Commission “were it not for a rigid and discriminatory system
of ‘workforce diversity points.'” Hall alleges that because white males
receive “the minimum allowable diversity points,” his overall score —
and his employment eligibility — was negated, though he scored “better
than most” in every other aspect of the agency’s pre-employment testing
process.

According to a statement released by the Campaign For a
Color-Blind America, a non-profit legal
organization representing Hall, the Texas Alcohol and Beverage
Commission’s employment policies show that 10 percent of a job
applicant’s employment eligibility “grade” depends upon workforce
diversity points.

“Points are given for being black or Hispanic and being a woman,” but
“a white male like Mr. Hall receives the fewest points,” the statement
says. Public records show that the commission awards white males the
lowest possible diversity points while granting Hispanic females the
highest.

The lawsuit alleges “the TABC’s own tables clearly indicate that Hall
would have made the hiring cut-off had the ‘workforce diversity points’
criteria not been used.”

“The TABC procedure is based on guidelines promulgated by the Texas
Human Rights Commission and may be used by other state agencies,” said
the Campaign For a Color-Blind America.

“For this reason, Hall has not only filed a class action on behalf of
other TABC job applicants who may have been turned away for a lack of
‘workforce diversity points,’ but he is also seeking to name as
defendants all other state agencies that have adopted this
discriminatory system.”

Edward Blum, co-chairman of the Campaign For a Color-Blind America,
told WorldNetDaily that Hall’s case mimicks another involving the
admissions policies of the University of Texas School of Law. In that
case, a white female student named Cheryl Hopwood and two other
applicants filed a discrimination lawsuit against the university,
charging that admission policies unfairly favored racial minorities. The
Fifth U.S. Circuit Court agreed, and summarily banned all universities
within the court’s jurisdiction from using race-based admission quotas
and policies.

“What’s really so apparent (in this case) is the fact that the TABC
has a complicated algebraic scoring system for applicants based upon
their race and/or gender,” Blum said. “People who apply are given a test
whereby their education, work experience and their personal interview
are analyzed. All of those things are given a numeric grade.”

When all phases of testing are complete, he said, “in comes the
workforce diversity point grade. Clearly Mr. Hall — and others —
scored better than many on their education, background and interview,
but weren’t offered employment because they scored so low on their
workforce diversity point scale.”

“That’s clearly a constitutional violation,” said Blum.

WorldNetDaily contacted the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission,
where a spokesman for the general counsel’s office said he was not aware
of the suit. However, he said the agency no longer uses the diversity
points model.

“We stopped using it around September or October, 1998,” he said.

But Blum said Hall “applied for a job with TABC in early 1998,” then
received a rejection notice “midway through the year,” ostensibly when
the diversity point system was still in place. Of the commission general
counsel’s statement, Blum said, “we’ll wait and see, but that still
doesn’t moot our lawsuit.”

“If you deny someone admission using an unconstitutional formula,
you’re not let off the hook merely because you change that formula after
the fact,” he said. “As we dig around a little deeper into this lawsuit,
we may discover that perhaps workforce diversity points are minimized,”
but he believes the Texas Alcohol and Beverage Commission still uses
them “in some form or another.”

The commission’s employment policy states it “is an equal opportunity
employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color,
religion, gender, national origin, age or disability.”