President Obama to Ban the Box on federal job applications

Norris Henderson and members of FICPFM deliver over 100,000 petitions to President Obama last week.

Today, President Obama will sign an Executive Order to Ban the Box for all prospective federal employees. This represents a significant step in the past decade of organizing by directly impacted people. What began as a San Francisco ordinance proposed by All of Us or None, to give people a chance at an interview, has ultimately gone viral. This latest step has been the focus of the Formerly Incarcerated, Convicted People, Families Movement (FICPFM), and received an incredible lift from John Legend's plea for all Americans to sign a Ban the Box petition.

Last week, VOTE Executive Director Norris Henderson and other members of the FICPFM delivered over 100,000 signatures to the White House. The President has promised that this number commands a response, and he held to it. The FICPFM was formed as an alliance of grassroots organizations by leaders who have served time in prison and/or traveled long distances to visit loved ones for just an hour or two. Tens of millions of Americans live under vast interlocking laws that impact every aspect of life, from job opportunities to housing discrimination, education to health care. Where 80 million people have convictions, their families also deal with the lifetime consequences.

Norris Henderson and FICPFM members call on President Obama to Ban the Box, one week ago. 
Details remain to be seen, but as the chief executive of the nation's largest employer, President Obama has followed the path of Koch Industries, Target, and others who have recognized that it is poor public policy (and bad business) to either automatically reject an application with the box checked, ("Have you ever been convicted of a felony?") or to subconsciously plant the seed of rejection by reading that information before making any other assessment of a person's abilities.

Although a momentous step in the struggle to restore citizenship and equality after serving punishment for a conviction, considerable work remains to be done. The president should take the next logical step and extend Ban the Box to all federal contractors. If they want to business for America, they need to adopt non-discrimination hiring standards. America needs a cultural shift to pave the way for genuine structural change. President Obama has continued a lineage of George Bush recognizing the need for rehabilitation (Second Chance Act) and Bill Clinton's recent apology that he "made the problem worse" through over-incarceration. Our next president must move towards a more constructive approach to the oppressive punishment regime created over the past half-century.

All organizations of the FICPFM remain committed to local, state, and national reforms based on the help our people need, rather than the help someone else wants to give us.