This story was first published at CPR News.
DENVER | The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office is under federal scrutiny for its use of psychological screening services that a Colorado lawyer argues violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
And Arapahoe could be just the first of many agencies to face scrutiny of their hiring practices.
Law enforcement agencies that range in size from Denver Police to Firestone pay tens of thousands of dollars a year to rely on an Illinois-based company that uses opaque methods to probe job applicants through the use of hundreds of questions — including whether the applicants have ever been victims of sexual harassment or whether they’ve ever filed formal complaints against previous employers, according to court documents.
The company, called Psychological Dimensions, has doctors that make recommendations to law enforcement agencies on the suitability of various applicants for the jobs they want.
The screenings aren’t just for sworn law enforcement officer hires, but also for civilian jobs — like public information officers.
The attention on the company stems from an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigation that began with a 2020 incident in which a woman was offered a civilian public information role at the Arapahoe Sheriff’s Office.
She had passed all of the pre-hire screenings and job interviews. Then, after agreeing on a contingent offer, submitted to another round of questions, in which she acknowledged to a Psychological Dimensions doctor that, six years prior, she had anxiety and post-traumatic stress issues stemming from a childhood incident.
Arapahoe County rescinded her job offer.
In court documents, the county attorney said the decision to revoke her offer of employment was based on the recommendation resulting from the woman’s “lack of candor and duplicitous behavior.”
“The offer was rescinded because she repeatedly provided contradicting information about her medical history during the post-offer medical/psychological examination and demonstrated questionable judgment by overly downplaying significant past psychological issues,” said Assistant County Attorney Daniel Perkins, in court documents.
Perkins then went on to say that there is no evidence that the woman’s “conditional offer of employment was rescinded because of her purported disability.”
Arapahoe County and the Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the EEOC investigation beyond the statements in court documents because it remains active.
Psychological Dimensions said the woman’s “self report” raised serious concerns about her ability to communicate information consistently, clearly and reliably, which is a core job-relevant dimension of the public information job, according to court documents.
The woman “was determined to be unsuitable for the position at that time.” Then, they added, “any medical or psychological conditions she may or may not have had were simply not part of that equation.”
It’s an explanation the woman’s lawyer doesn’t buy.
“That’s just plain discrimination,” said Iris Halpern, the woman’s attorney representing her in front of the EEOC. “After extending a job offer, a company can do a fit-for-duty examination, but you can’t use that information to then discriminate against someone.”
Arapahoe County’s pre-screening questions for applicants is still under investigation by the EEOC, said Mary Jo O’Neill, a regional attorney for the EEOC’s Phoenix District Office, which is handling the investigation.
“Federal law gives the EEOC authority to obtain information necessary to determine whether an employer’s hiring practices comply with antidiscrimination statutes,” O’Neill said, in an email.
The EEOC recently lost a subpoena enforcement action in Colorado district court, which would have forced Psychological Dimensions to hand over a large swath of applicants’ answers to pre-screening questions and their evaluations of those answers.
O’Neill said they are mulling an appeal to that and they are continuing to investigate the hiring practices.
But Halpern is worried about the potentially thousands of people who were subjected to pre-medical screenings and other inappropriate questions that discriminated against them before they even were considered for jobs at police departments.
That’s a flagrant law violation, she said.
“You can’t just ask someone about their life,” Halpern said. “You have to ask them whether they can perform the essential job functions … Are these questions geared towards that? Not really.”
In search of the best qualified applicants — with unknown questions
Police departments say they pay Psychological Dimensions to do their screenings because they want the most qualified candidates for demanding jobs which frequently have enormous power over the public. That includes sworn law enforcement officers, but agencies also use them for civilian positions, as well, the agencies said.
“Because of the serious nature of a police department job, Boulder Police use experts to review and evaluate information related to potential job applicants,” said Dionne Waugh, a spokeswoman for Boulder Police, in an email. “Psychological Dimensions conducts a job suitability review for all sworn officer candidates and the majority of civilian employees out of an abundance of caution.”
Waugh and other agencies say they give Psychological Dimensions a copy of their job descriptions and the company designs questions used to flesh out whether an applicant is suited for the position.
But agencies don’t know the specific questions that Psychological Dimensions asks of job applicants, they only know “topics” — including experience with driving, employment, finance, legal and mental health, Waugh said.
The company requires complete autonomy to ask what they want, according to law enforcement agencies and copies of contracts reviewed by CPR News.
Sandi Seader, assistant city manager for Longmont, said they’ve worked with Psychological Dimensions for three years and they use the psychological screenings for civilian positions, 911 dispatchers and law enforcement officer jobs.
She acknowledged the city doesn’t have a list of questions they ask, but said the generated reports she’s seen include mental health, aggression history, drug/substance use, current and past law enforcement history and current/past medical prescriptions and psychiatric treatments.
Employment law allows companies to gauge a job applicant’s qualifications by asking whether the person can perform the essential functions of the job with or without an accommodation. And the Americans for Disabilities Act bans companies from asking applicants, before they’re offered a job, about any physical or mental health medical conditions.
“People are not even given a chance to be fairly considered for a job that they would do well in,” Halpern said.
The Denver Police Department also uses Psychological Dimensions for screening job applicants.
Last year, almost 2,000 people applied to be entry-level police officers, according to the annual report. There are about 1,600 sworn police officers in Denver and another roughly 350 civilian employees.
Are qualified candidates being screened out?
The problem is two-fold, employment experts say.
First, the agencies, through Psychological Dimensions, are potentially asking medical questions in advance of offering people jobs, according to court documents.
And second, like in the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office candidate’s case, they are using what could be considered a disability — in her case a post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety — to disqualify someone from a job that they otherwise have the credentials to do.
The company has not been fully cooperative with the federal investigation so far, according to court documents, even though officials say in filings they’ve gone to “great efforts” to comply with requests.
But earlier this year, the company refused to hand over information about how they use their pre-hire questions to gauge job suitability to the federal government citing onerousness given the lengthy nature of it and also intellectual property concerns.
The EEOC’s request “comprise an impermissible fishing expedition, as they are overbroad and arbitrary, seeking information far beyond the bounds of the charges.”
In the Arapahoe County case, EEOC attorneys subpoenaed lengthy documentation about how the company ferrets out applicants based on answers in four questions furnished by Arapahoe County as part of a “Life History Questionnaire” that applicants were asked to fill out as part of the interview process.
Those questions included, “have you ever been involved in or experienced any sexual harassment in the workplace?” and “have you ever filed a formal complaint against an employer for any reason?”
EEOC officials say in court documents that this is a pattern or practice case of disability discrimination — particularly for civilian hires.
“Respondents concede they have historically subjected and continue to subject, on an ongoing basis, all civilian applicants … to questions first developed for active-duty,, which at the same time likely constitute unlawful, pre-employment medical inquiries and evaluations in violation of the ADA,” the federal agency wrote in its charge of discrimination against the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office filed in April.
“Respondents are systematically engaged in a pattern or practice of violating the following provisions of the ADA in their application and hiring procedures.”
That includes, the EEOC said, unlawful failure to hire based on a perceived disability, participating in a contractual arrangement or relationship that violates the ADA and using qualifications standards, employment tests or other selection criteria that screen out or tend to screen out an individual with a disability.
The Colorado police and sheriff’s agencies don’t know all of how Psychological Dimensions does its job either. The company keeps the questions they ask sealed — like a secret sauce — even from the people employing them.
In a review of contracts Psychological Dimensions has with Denver, Arapahoe County and Loveland, the agencies say they don’t disclose what they ask.
Gracie Perez, the executive director of the Denver Civil Service Commission, said she felt confident in the legality of the contract with the company but said the issues brought up in court documents stemming from the EEOC investigation has made her rethink the details of the arrangement moving forward.
“I’m always a believer that if there are other things we can review, we should,” Perez said. “In light of developments, I think there’s an opportunity to review certain contracts just to tighten things up.”
That doesn’t eliminate the liability the local governments could have, though, if a judge determines the pre-screening questions violate federal law.
Many questions, no answers from the company
Psychological Dimensions wouldn’t grant an interview for the story due to ongoing litigation, but Heather McElroy, the owner and managing partner of their Georgia office, said in an email that the company is “committed to conducting fair, consistent, and job-related evaluation processes for public safety candidates.”
McElroy said the company is fighting to keep records confidential to honor obligations to applicants and agency clients.
“Because this matter involves confidential applicant information and pending legal proceedings, we are not able to provide further comment,” she said.
McElroy said the company doesn’t furnish specific questions or the formulas for how they gauge suitability because they’re “not appropriate for disclosure.”
“Client agencies are informed about the purpose, scope, structure and job-related domains of the evaluation process,” she said. “What is not shared with client agencies are proprietary test items, item-level questions, raw test data or sensitive clinical/medical information. This protects the integrity of the evaluation process and privacy of applicants.”
That leaves a woman who thought she had secured a job with the Arapahoe Sheriff feeling a little aggrieved.
The applicant, who now lives out of state, was among hundreds of people who reportedly applied to be a public information officer at the sheriff’s office, according to court documents.
She passed the polygraph test and received an email afterwards that she had successfully moved onto the next phase of the hiring process, which included an oral interview, according to court documents.
Two weeks later, she was offered the job.
By then, the woman had filled out the formal application, completed a written exam, interviewed with at least six officers, passed a polygraph test, completed a “personal history statement” and participated in the aforementioned lengthy mental and physical health examinations.
The supervisor called back a few minutes later to say that the job was actually contingent on another medical and psychological evaluation. She agreed and signed the offer.
The woman submitted to another psychological examination at Psychological Dimensions. She answered another 430 questions that included whether she had any psychological issues that would interfere with her ability to perform the role, what kind of prescription medications she was taking and whether she had ever involuntarily been committed to an inpatient psychiatric hospital, whether she was in therapy and if so for what mental issues.
She acknowledged she had been treated for PTSD in the past. A psychologist from Psychological Dimensions asked her to identify the doctors who had diagnosed her and document every prescription drug she had ever taken.
The woman agreed. She also decided to include, in that paperwork, information that she went to a holistic spa-like treatment center voluntarily to help in a high-anxiety time seven years earlier. It was long enough that the center didn’t have her records anymore. But the woman handed over records to Psychological Dimensions.
The week she thought she was starting, she got a call that the offer had been rescinded because she did not pass the post-offer psychological exam.
The woman hired an attorney, who sought details about the screening process and questions from Arapahoe County. Arapahoe County attorneys say they have no knowledge of the questions and evaluations applicants to their agency receive.
“Respondents … confirmed that they do not know what Psychological Dimensions asks applicants and that Psychological Dimensions has refused to disclose even the raw questions to respondents,” the lawsuit said.
Halpern called this a cut and dry “stigma” case.
“You don’t even need an accommodation, but the employer perceives you to be disabled even if you are not,” she said. “When they passed the Americans for Disabilities Act, they said the myths and the stereotypes around disability do more damage, oftentimes, than the disability itself.”