Civil and Human Rights Coalition Applauds Obama Endorsement of “Ban the Box,” Calls for White House Action

WASHINGTON—Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, issued the following statement in response to President Obama’s ongoing work to reform the criminal justice system and his endorsement of “banning the box” for job applications. At the NAACP National Convention earlier this week, the President said “let’s follow the growing number of our states, and cities, and private companies who’ve decided to ban the box on job applications so that former prisoners who have done their time and are now trying to get straight with society have a decent shot in a job interview.”  The Leadership Conference has also urged the President to issue an executive order that would “ban the box” for job applications with the federal government and its contractors and implement fair chance hiring practices that would open doors of opportunity for people who were once incarcerated:

“Our justice system is deeply unjust and unfair. We often focus on the incarceration rate and the impact that biased policing and sentencing have on communities of color. But the injustices of our system are much more widespread. Not only do we police and incarcerate more people than any place in the world, we also continue to punish people long after they have completed their time in prison.

The President has demonstrated leadership in advancing many desperately needed reforms to our inhumane, discriminatory, and costly criminal justice system, including today’s historic visit to a federal penitentary, the first for a sitting president. But his endorsement of ‘banning the box’ is especially commendable for its potential to help eliminate barriers to employment and provide people with an opportunity to successfully re-integrate into society. 

One in three Americans or 70 million people have an arrest or conviction record. These individuals face enormous obstacles to securing housing, financial aid for college, access to public benefits, and employment for the rest of their lives. These barriers come at a huge cost to our nation, which permanently forces people to the margins of society.

The President should continue to demonstrate leadership by catching up to the 18 states, more than 100 cities, and many major companies that have already banned the box and opted to give everyone a fair chance at employment. We are calling on the White House to issue an executive order this year to make sure that all federal agencies and contractors ban the box on employment applications and implement fair hiring practices that evaluate a person on the merits and not solely based on their criminal history. By eliminating the litmus test that denies all applicants who have been in prison the opportunity to work, we ensure that as the President stated earlier this week, we are “a nation that believes in second chances.”

We thank President Obama for his leadership on criminal justice reform and call on him to take the next step and issue this executive order to ban the box this summer.”

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its 200-plus member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.