(Christian Science Monitor)This article was written by Ben Arnoldy.

Lisa Bailey worked for five months at Harvard University as a temp entering donations into a database. When the university made the job a salaried position, Bailey, who is black, saw a chance to lift herself out of dead-end jobs.

Bailey’s superiors encouraged her to apply, she says but turned her down after discovering her bad credit history.

Bailey, with her lawyer, has lodged a complaint against Harvard charging racial discrimination. The reason: Studies show that minorities are more likely to have bad credit, but credit problems have not been shown to negatively affect job performance.

Some privacy and minority advocates are now seeing credit as a civil rights issue as minorities start to fight employers and insurers who base decisions on credit histories.

Their effort could slow the near doubling in credit checks by employers in the past decade, which impacts millions of Americans who are struggling with debt.

“It’s definitely a civil rights issue because of the growing use of credit reports and credit scores for hiring, renting an apartment, insurance, and the fact that people of color have not been integrated into the credit scoring system as much as traditional, white, middle-class America,” says Evan Hendricks, author of “Credit Scores & Credit Reports: How the System Really Works, What You Can Do.”

In a 2004 study involving 2 million people, the Texas Department of Insurance found that blacks have an average credit score roughly 10 percent to 35 percent worse than whites; Hispanics have scores 5 percent to 25 percent worse than whites.

Credit checks are a growing factor in hiring, with 35 percent of employers checking applicants’ credit in 2003, up from 19 percent in 1996, according to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). Typically credit reports are done if a person is going to deal with money, says John Dooney, a manager of strategic research at SHRM.

A Case For Considering Credit

Employers should look at credit only for jobs where the information is relevant, says Lester Rosen, president of Employment Screening Resources, a national background screening firm in California. He cites a few examples:

- For jobs handling money, people may have the motive to steal if their debts surpass their salary.

- For jobs requiring travel, bad credit could bar applicants from renting cars or buying tickets.

- For jobs managing money, the report can offer some clues on how applicants manage their own.

Particularly in that last scenario, he cautions employers to be circumspect since blemishes might be errors or beyond the person’s control, such as sudden medical expenses.

Legally, employers must receive written permission from applicants to do a credit check, and must give those denied because of credit a chance to respond.

Rosen defends the careful consideration of credit in the hiring process. “If Harvard hired a person and did not use a credit report and the person embezzled, what would the headline be?” he asks.

So far, there’s a lack of data supporting a relationship between bad credit and theft by employees. In perhaps the only study published on the subject, Jerry Palmer and Laura Koppes at Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond in 2003 found no correlation between employee credit reports and negative performance or termination for dishonesty.

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2007 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

(CBS/AP)AT&T Inc. chairman and CEO Edward Whitacre Jr. announced unexpectedly on Friday that he will retire on June 3 after 44 years with the nation’s largest telecommunications company.

The 65-year-old Whitacre also announced at the company’s annual meeting that the board has elected chief operating officer Randall Stephenson, 47, to replace him.

In his 17 years at the helm, the outspoken Texan known for blunt remarks on industry topics presided over the company’s growth from a regional telephone provider to the nation’s largest provider of wireless, broadband and traditional phone service through an aggressive string of acquisitions, most recently the $86 billion purchase of BellSouth.

Whitacre’s contract doesn’t expire for another year, and it wasn’t immediately clear what spurred his decision to step down now.

Though AT&T’s stock rallied sharply last year, Whitacre has been criticized for his pay and retirement package. For 2006, he received compensation that the company valued at $31.77 million.

Whitacre stands poised to receive a total of $158.5 million, according to a calculation by The Corporate Library, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The company, formerly named Southwestern Bell and then SBC Communications, was actually the smallest of the seven “Baby Bells” spun off in 1984’s government-ordered breakup of the national AT&T monopoly.

But under Whitacre, the company acquired three of its larger Bell siblings, as well as its former corporate parent, the AT&T long-distance business created in the breakup, renaming itself AT&T in the process.

To call up a company snapshot: http://marketwatch.cbsnews.com/custom/cbsnews-com/html-companysnapshot.asp?symb=att

April 30, 2007 — When network executives take the stage in two weeks to unfurl their new fall TV shows, they will face their toughest audience in years.

For all the networks, it will be hard to stand before a roomful of advertisers and ad buyers and persuade them that the past year was a success.

Primetime ratings are down across the board heading into the May “upfronts,” the annual shopping spree when advertisers pick up commercial time.

Advertisers are still hungering for hits after this year’s crop produced few breakout shows. With the exception of NBC’s “Heroes” and to a lesser degree ABC’s “Ugly Betty,” the networks have little reason to boast.

Moreover, each of the major networks - ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC - have weak spots in their schedules that will be hard to ignore in their pitches to advertisers.

“I don’t think there’s any network chief who can get up there and say they had a successful year,” said an ad buyer, who asked to go unnamed.

In terms of total primetime viewers, ABC is down nearly 13 percent this year, NBC is down almost 11 percent and CBS is down more than 7 percent, according to Nielsen.

Fox is up slightly but even its ratings juggernaut, “American Idol,” has shown weakness recently. News Corp. owns Fox and The Post.

Some of the declines can be attributed to the rise of digital video recorders, or DVRs.

The current live ratings used to negotiate ad rates don’t include any DVR playback, although the major networks and advertisers are trying to address that issue.

Along with the changes sweeping the TV industry, each of the major networks faces individual problems with their lineups.

Although “Heroes” was a hit this year, NBC still ranks in fourth place with the most scheduling holes. Wednesday is the worst night and is now pretty much wide open after the cancellation of “Kidnapped” and “20 Good Years.”

Several other freshman shows, including “Studio 60″ and “The Black Donnellys” are on the bubble, or expecting the ax, so there could be even more gaps to be fill in the fall season.

ABC had been on a hot streak with shows like “Grey’s Anatomy,” but other successes, such as “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives,” are showing signs of cooling off. As a result, ad buyers said the network has a lot riding on a much-anticipated “Grey’s” spinoff featuring actress Kate Walsh.

Even CBS, which touts its stable schedule year after year, is under pressure to come up with some fresh shows to liven up its veteran lineup, including the aging “Survivor.”

The top-ranked network also relies heavily on crime and legal dramas like “CSI,” which appeal to the current TV audience but could leave it vulnerable down the line.

The No. 1 ranked network cites shows like “Shark” and “Jericho” as successes, but the reality is that they attract only modest ratings, ad buyers said.

Fox will be in better shape after cutting back on the number of postseason Major League Baseball games in October, which delayed the debut of fall shows and hurt ratings.

Although the network had a couple of new shows with solid ratings this season, almost all of them benefited from “Idol” as an audience lead-in or promotional tool. It remains to be seen if they can stand on their own.

holly.sanders@nypost.com