The Biden administration is suing the popular Pennsylvania-based convenience store chain Sheetz for requiring ‘racist’ background checks for prospective employees that the government says has disproportionately kept Black, Native American, and multiracial applicants out of a job.

The only problem is that the government agency suing Sheetz requires the same background checks of its own employees. 

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the lawsuit in Maryland last week — on the same day President Biden stopped by a Sheetz during a campaign swing in western Pennsylvania. 

Sheetz operates hundreds of stores and employs more than 10,000 people on the east coast and in the midwest. 

“Diversity and inclusion are essential parts of who we are. We take these allegations seriously. We have attempted to work with the EEOC for nearly eight years to find common ground and resolve this dispute,” a company spokesman said in a statement to the Associated Press.

The EEOC itself, however, uses those same kinds of “racist” criminal background checks to choose its own employees. 

“Background evaluations, sometimes referred to as background investigations, seek information about an applicant’s employment, criminal, and personal history in an effort to investigate behavioral reliability, integrity, and personal adjustment,” the Office of Personnel Management, which handles hiring for federal executive branch positions, says on its website.

“Background evaluations are conducted to determine whether there are any historical facts that would interfere with an applicant’s ability to perform the job, including violations of statutes, regulations, or laws,” the office says.

According to the lawsuit filed in Maryland, the EEOC is not seeking a court order stopping the use of criminal background checks, but rather wants to force Sheetz to find a new method of investigating an applicant’s background without throwing them out of the potential hiring pool because of a previous offense. 

“Federal law mandates that employment practices causing a disparate impact because of race or other protected classifications must be shown by the employer to be necessary to ensure the safe and efficient performance of the particular jobs at issue,” the lawsuit states. “Even when such necessity is proven, the practice remains unlawful if there is an alternative practice available that is comparably effective in achieving the employer’s goals but causes less discriminatory effect.”