Dive Brief:

• A manufacturing staffing company allegedly violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act when it refused to refer a naturalized citizen for employment with a government contractor because she was born in Germany and not the U.S., the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a lawsuit (EEOC v. Employbridge of Dallas, Inc. d/b/a ResourceMFG, No. 22-499 (W.D. Okla. June 17, 2022)).
• During a walk-in interview in February 2020, a woman met with a ResourceMFG recruiter at the company’s Oklahoma City office, according to the lawsuit. The recruiter told her she would be a good fit for a temp-to-hire job with XPO Logistics, a government contractor. She completed paperwork for a first-shift warehouse position, and the recruiter told her to produce identification and other necessary documents, including her U.S. birth certificate, the EEOC alleged. The woman explained that as a naturalized citizen who was born in Germany, she didn’t have a U.S. birth certificate but did have documents to show she is a U.S. citizen. The recruiter told her she wasn’t qualified for the job because she was born in Germany and sent her home, according to the complaint.
• Based on ResourceMFG’s alleged actions, the EEOC sued the company for national origin discrimination. Pursuant to its government contract, XPO required temporary and permanent employees to be U.S. citizens but not that they be born in the U.S., the lawsuit said. “Staffing companies providing workers to government contractors cannot add additional requirements, such as U.S. birth certificates, to their selection process,” Andrea G. Baran, an EEOC regional attorney, stated in a release. ResourceMFG did not respond to a request for a statement before press time.

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