Potentially controversial, it is also a tricky legal area in the United States, according to Deborah Weinstein, who teaches employment law for managers in Wharton's legal studies and business ethics department.

CNN: Balancing faith and business

The EEOC is confident that its guidance will boost minority hiring, but studies published in the University of Chicago Legal Forum and the Journal of Law and Economics have found that businesses are much less likely to hire minority applicants when background checks are banned.

WSJ: James Bovard: Perform Criminal Background Checks at Your Peril

He graduated in law at the University of Ghana in 1967 before pursuing his legal studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

BBC: Profile: Ghana President John Atta Mills