Hiring Discrimination Case Settled

Electrical contractor M.C. Dean Inc. paid $875,000 to settle a Labor Department allegation that its hiring practices discriminated against minorities.

Under the agreement announced this week, the contractor will pay back wages to 381 minority job applicants who sought work at the Dulles-based company in 2010.

The Labor Department says the allegations resulted from a routine review. It says M.C. Dean used written tests and personality tests to hire apprentices and electricians. Those tests ended up weeding out minority applicants at statistically unacceptable rates.

The department says it does not evaluate whether the tests' content was somehow discriminatory, but M.C. Dean had an obligation to know that its tests were producing an adverse impact on minority applicants.

M.C. Dean says the settlement is not an admission of guilt.