SimplyHR | Employment & Labor Blog 

The EEOC’s April 2012 Enforcement Guidance on employers’ use of criminal record screens has led many employers to question, or at least revisit, their background review procedures. This guidance not only urges employers to conduct “targeted” background screens (which consider the nature of each crime reported by prospective employees, the nature of the job in question, and the time elapsed after each crime reported), but further calls employers to engage in individualized assessments of those individuals screened out because of a background review.

This summer, the United States Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Windsor that the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”), the law that defined “marriage” as a union between one man and one woman for purposes of federal law, was unconstitutional. The effect of the ruling is that married same-sex couples would become eligible for certain federal spousal benefits that were denied to them under DOMA. In the wake of Windsor, employers have been awaiting guidance from federal agencies as to what DOMA’s downfall means for administering employee benefit plans. We had previously written a blog post about this uncertainty; however, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) recently issued the awaited guidance to help employers comply with Windsor’s ruling.