When Kenneth Hall, the former Office of Residential Life and Learning administrative assistant recently convicted in Suffolk County as a sex offender, applied to work at Tufts, the university did not conduct a criminal background check on him.
"Under current policy, an [ORLL] administrative assistant is not subject to a CORI check," Vice President of Human Resources Kathe Cronin told the Daily in an e-mail.
Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) checks are state-sponsored background checks run through the Criminal History Systems Board (CHSB). Organizations certified by the board can get access to conviction records and information about pending charges.
Neither Human Resources nor ORLL Director Yolanda King would say when Hall began working at Tufts. Since Suffolk County district attorney's office spokesperson Jake Wark said Hall was unemployed at the time of his November 2004 arraignment, it seems that Tufts hired him at some point after that.
If a CORI check had been conducted on Hall, it is not clear whether the university would have learned about his arrest and arraignment.
Such information is not available on publicly-accessible CORI records, and is only obtainable via a CORI check if an employer has certification from the CHSB to conduct restricted-information investigations.
Tufts Human Resources uses an outside company to secure its CORI checks, so whether the university would have access to the arrest information would depend on whether the company could convince the CHSB to grant it access to private records for people applying to positions such as Hall's.
Even if the university had learned of the pending charges against Hall, it is unclear whether that information could be used when deciding whether to hire him since arrests and arraignments are often treated differently under the law than convictions.
Employers, for example, are generally forbidden from asking applicants about their arrest records. "The Massachusetts law on criminal background checks limits the employer's ability to use arrest records alone to make employment decisions," University Counsel Dickens Matthieu said.
But if employers obtain permission from the CHSB to get private records, these restrictions may be loosened, although CHSB General Counsel Erin Deveney could not say whether employers could use arrest or arraignment information when making hiring decisions. "We don't tell employers who you should hire and who you should not hire," she said.
Jody Newman, an employment law attorney at Dwyer and Collora in Boston, said that as long as employers get permission from the CHSB to access restricted records, it is her opinion that they could put that information to use.
"It logically flows that they of course can make hiring decisions based on that information," she said.
The hurdle, she said, is gaining access to that information in the first place. To do so, an employer must show that knowing about criminal charges that do not involve convictions serves a public interest.
"The access to criminal history for job applicants balances the privacy rights of applicants with public safety and an employer's duties to maintain a safe work place and [avoid] liability for failing to do so," she said.
Under current university policy, applicants for resident director, senior university leadership, Tufts Educational Day Care Center, Eliot-Pearson Children's School and public safety positions are subject to criminal checks, according to Cronin, who noted that "other specific staff positions may require CORI checks and sometimes financial background checks as well."
Human Resources does not handle all of the checks. Those for the day care center and children's school are run through state's Department of Early Education and Care, for example. Public Safety checks do not go through Human Resources either.
In addition to the criminal background checks that the university requires, applicants for all positions are asked if they have any felony convictions. But although the university does verify applicants' educational and employment history credentials, it currently does not check to see if applicants not subject to checks are honest about their criminal histories.
While not specifically in response to the Hall incident, the university is currently in the process of reviewing its CORI policies.
"The safety of our campuses is very important to us, and so we want to determine how various types of background checks can help us with this," Cronin said.
She said during the reevaluation process, the university will consider whether ORLL administrative assistants will require criminal checks.
"As we reexamine our general background check policy, we will reconsider whether this position, among others, should be subject to a CORI check," she said.
Carol Sharpe, a former ORLL staff assistant currently working as a part-time secretary for OneSource, feels that all ORLL positions should require criminal checks.
"That's common sense," she said. "Students are supposed to be the most important things on the campus ... and their safety is supposed to be top-level."
As the university reevaluates its policies, Cronin said that it will have company in the higher education community. "[This] is an issue that all academic institutions are grappling with," she said.
