Many states have some protections in place for employees and applicants with criminal convictions, ranging from ban-the-box laws that prohibit inquiries into criminal records until the interview stage to opinion letters that adverse employment decisions based on conviction record have an adverse impact on minority applicants and employees. But no state goes as far with these protections as Illinois, which has explicitly included conviction record as a protected class pursuant to the Illinois Human Rights Act (the “Act”).
The Act declares it a civil rights violation for any employer to refuse to hire, discipline, or terminate an applicant or employee based on a conviction unless: (1) there is a substantial relationship between the conviction and the job or (2) hiring the applicant or continuing to employ the employee would involve an unreasonable risk to property or the safety and welfare of specific individuals or public safety.
Before refusing to hire an applicant or terminating an employee based on a criminal history, regardless of the severity of that history, an Illinois employer must go through a detailed interactive process. It must consider the length of time since the conviction(s), the number of convictions, the nature and severity of the conviction(s), the facts surrounding the conviction(s), the age of the individual at the time of the conviction(s), and evidence of rehabilitation efforts. It must send the employee a pre-adverse action letter informing the...
New Delhi (Vishvas News). A video of Congress MP and Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, is currently going viral on various social media platforms. In the video, he can be se...