Federal District Court Finds California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Violated Title VII by Barring U.S. Citizen from Employment for Previous Use of Invalid SSN
U.S. District Judge William Alsup
The Employment Law Center has won an important victory in federal district court. A federal court in the Northern District of California ruled that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”) and the California State Personnel Board (“SPB”) violated federal civil rights law by denying employment to Victor Guerrero, a naturalized U.S. citizen, because he had used an invalid Social Security number (“SSN”) to work while undocumented.
Mr. Guerrero, a 15-year resident of Stockton, California, had applied to work as a correctional officer for CDCR in 2011 and 2013. Both times he was disqualified from the job for the same reason – truthfully disclosing during the application process prior use of an invalid SSN.
In a detailed 33-page ruling, U.S. District Judge William Alsup stated, “There is no indication in the record that Guerrero’s misuse of an SSN under his circumstances ‘pose[d] an unacceptable level of risk’ for CDCR.” The Court “d[id] not find anything in the record that would indicate that Guerrero embodied an unqualified or even a less qualified — applicant.” As a result, the Court concluded that “CDCR’s effectively single-issue withhold based on [SSN misuse] amounted to an “arbitrary . . . barrier to employment” in violation of Title VII.”
This case could affect a large number of previously-undocumented immigrants who worked on invalid Social Security Numbers but later were able to regularize their immigration status. Reliance on use of such SSNs could well have disparate impacts on Latina/os and other national origin minorities.
KJ