An IT company is attempting to do damage control after one of its job listings stated that only white candidates born in the U.S. should be considered.
The posting—made by the Virginia-based company Arthur Grand Technologies, which listed billionaire Warren Buffet’s multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway as well as HTC Global as clients for the job—was discovered this week on the employment website Indeed.
“Only Born US Citizens [White] who are local within 60 miles from Dallas, TC [Don’t share with candidates,]” a note on the post said.
The discovery quickly led to a bombardment of criticism against the company, which repeatedly stumbled over itself in its attempts to remedy the situation.
After removing the job listing, Arthur Grand Technologies responded to complaints on LinkedIn by releasing a statement that blamed the post on a low-level employee.
“At Arthur Grand, we do not condone or engage in any type of discrimination based on race, color, or religion,” the company wrote. “We conducted an investigation and discovered that a new junior recruiter at our firm was responsible for the offending job posting.”
In subsequent comments, the company claimed that it “terminated the employee” and instituted measures that would ensure that such incidents do not reoccur.
The complaints against Arthur Grand Technologies soon made their way to Twitter, where the company’s official account was likewise flooded with condemnation. Yet soon after, the company chose to lock down its Twitter account before deleting it entirely.
The Facebook profile and website for Arthur Grand Technologies appears to have been taken down not long after.
In a follow-up statement on LinkedIn, which did not mention the disappearance of their social media accounts and website, Arthur Grand Technologies altered its story to claim that a former employee had actually been responsible for the job listing.
“This job posting was neither authorized nor posted by Arthur Grand or its employees,” the company said. “A former employee took an existing posting and added discriminatory language, then reposted it through his own account.”
The company also claimed that legal action had been taken against the job poster before extolling its commitment to diversity.
“Arthur Grand is a minority-owned company that has been offering IT and staffing services since 2012 and we pride ourselves on the diversity of our staff and leadership,” the statement said. “It is the policy of Arthur Grand that all employees and applicants for employment are afforded equal opportunity without regard to race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, religion, or non-job-related disability.”
Despite its attempt to reassure the public, commenters responded with doubt to the company’s explanation.
“You have to wonder how often this happens in a company, only difference is these guys got caught,” one LinkedIn user said.
The Daily Dot reached out to Arthur Grand Technologies over LinkedIn but did not hear back by press time.
