Active Case

Mandala v. NTT Data

Criminal History Discrimination Criminal History Discrimination

Racial Discrimination Racial Discrimination

Outten & Golden and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund are representing plaintiffs in Mandala v. NTT, a case challenging NTT’s decision to deny jobs to qualified Black job applicants because of their criminal records.

The two lead plaintiffs both applied for positions at NTT and received job offers. The company subsequently withdrew their offers after learning that they had criminal convictions, according to the complaint.

The plaintiffs, who are New York residents, allege that NTT’s practice violates Title VII, a federal civil rights law that prohibits race discrimination, as well as a similar provision in the New York Human Rights Law. They also allege it violates state laws that require employers to assess an applicant’s conviction in light of specific factors to determine whether it’s related to the job.

The plaintiffs first filed their complaint in 2018, but the court initially dismissed it by finding that racial disparities in the country’s criminal justice system didn’t support claims that NTT discriminated against them, personally. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals later affirmed the dismissal but provided guidance for the kinds of data they could add that would support their complaint.

In December 2023, the plaintiffs won a Second Circuit appellate ruling that paved the way for them to file an updated complaint and opened new opportunities to introduce statistical evidence in future civil rights cases.

Framing the Issue

Roughly one in three adults in the United States—about 80 million people—has a criminal record, according the National Employment Law Project.
People with criminal records form a surprisingly large part of the population seeking work—almost half the men in the labor pool. In total, more than 25 percent of workers in the active workforce have at least one prior conviction. (RAND)
Black Americans are disproportionately incarcerated, comprising 37% of individuals behind bars even though they account for just 13% of the nationwide population, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.
People who interact with the criminal justice system are more likely to be poor and Black, the Brennan Center for Justice found.
This general trend persists even after researchers control for background factors, such as parental marriage rates, education, and wealth. For example, black men who grew up in the top 1% of household incomes are incarcerated at the same rate as white men who grew up in families making $36,000 per year.
To remedy the disparate impact effect, 36 States and over 150 cities and counties have implemented “Ban the Box” policies that remove conviction and arrest questions from job applications and delay background checks until later in the hiring process.
Having a job has been shown to reduce recidivism, and individuals are less likely to commit crimes when they have stable, full-time employment. (Brookings)