City’s ‘Ban the Box’ Law Partly Preempted, Iowa Justices Say

Waterloo, Iowa’s 2019 ordinance limiting when employers in the city can inquire into a job applicant’s criminal history and restricting the use of such information in hiring decisions is partly invalid because it’s banned by state law on employment terms and conditions, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled.

A lower court properly found Ordinance 5522 may be enforced to the degree it regulates the timing of an inquiry into a past arrest or similar criminal history, the state justices said.

But its holding permitting the ordinance’s bar on the use of a criminal past as a basis for not hiring someone—except ...