Outrage over white-only job ad drives tech firm to delete website

After Redditors called out a Virginia-based tech firm for posting an "illegal and nauseating" job ad--which specified that only white US-born citizens would be considered--Arthur Grand Technologies has deleted the ad and shut down its website and social media presence entirely.

The deleted job ad was posted on Indeed, seeking to hire a Dallas-based business analyst for a long-term contract. The ad included a note labeled "don't share with candidates" that said that "Only US Born Citizens [White]" would be considered, inciting outrage that not only was the job listing giving preference to white candidates but that the company intended to hide these illegal criteria from applicants.

[don't share with candidates] pic.twitter.com/lij7iCjnGH

On Reddit, commenters encouraged applicants of every race and ethnicity to apply, then file a complaint with the Office of Federal Contract Compliance to report Arthur Grand and prompt an investigation into alleged discriminatory hiring practices violating federal law.

A LinkedIn post offers the company's official statement responding to the controversy, claiming that a former employee "took an existing posting and added discriminatory language, then reposted it through his own account." Arthur Grand said it is now pursuing legal action against that ex-employee.

However, Vice noted that Arthur Grand's LinkedIn statement had been edited, and a screenshot seemingly showed that the company had previously stated that the job posting was published by a junior employee who was subsequently fired. Confusion remains over whether any Arthur Grand employees lost their jobs because of the posting. Indeed's terms of service indicate that any employee posting on behalf of Arthur Grand would have been verified by the company, but it's possible that a terminated employee still had access to a linked account to post the ad.

Here they are on LinkedIn - instead of blaming the old windbags they throw some poor recruiter under the bus who was just following orders from Omaha!!! pic.twitter.com/NOvvn0ElA2

Ars could not immediately reach Arthur Grand to clarify who posted the job and whether any employees were terminated because of the job ad.

In the LinkedIn statement, Arthur Grand called the job ad "offensive," saying that the company is "minority-owned" and did not authorize the Indeed posting. By the end of the statement, the message gets a little garbled, saying that Arthur Grand is being "very clear" about what happened and requesting no further "assumption comments or questions" in order "to avoid further chaos."

On an archived version of Arthur Grand's now-deleted website, the tech firm described itself as being committed to bringing "the best talent to provide services" to its clients. Some of those clients include government agencies like the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Veterans Affairs, as well as commercial clients like Comcast, Capital One, Citi, and Fannie Mae.

The now-deleted job posting was intended to serve Arthur Grand's clients HTC Global Services and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Ars could not immediately reach either company for comment.

Because Arthur Grand has seemingly stopped responding to questions to "avoid chaos," unanswered questions remain for Redditors who wonder whether the employee who posted the ad was "an employee at the time of the post?" One commenter, quasarbar, asked, "did someone post this not-to-be-shared info on purpose to expose" Arthur Grand's hiring practices or did they post it "accidentally because they were mindlessly copy/pasting?"