EEOC sues BMW and Dollar General for doing criminal background checks...

... because of the  disparate impact on black people.

The suit against BMW Manufacturing Co. alleges the company disproportionately screened out African-Americans from jobs....

In the suit against Dolgencorp, doing business as Dollar General, the EEOC alleges the company's background-check policy, which looks back 10 years, results in a disparate impact against African-American workers....

The EEOC in April 2012 issued updated guidelines related to employer use of arrest and conviction records in employment decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The guidance noted that in the past 20 years a rising number of Americans "have had contact with the criminal justice system" as well as "a major increase in the number of people with criminal records in the working-age population."

According data cited in the EEOC's guidelines, the portion of adults in the U.S. that have served jail terms has risen from 1.8% in 1991 to 2.7% in 2001. By the end of 2007, 3.2% of adults in the U.S. were under some form of correctional control involving probation, parole, prison or jail. Meanwhile, African-Americans and Hispanics are arrested at a rate that is two times to three times their proportion of the general population.

ADDED: What about the disparate impact on men? Maybe the EEOC is OK with that.