Tag Archives: discrimination

The perceived unfairness in employment discrimination lawsuits

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A new study by three sociologists examines how both sides in employment discrimination lawsuits feel about the process:

“We wanted to hear, from actual people involved in employment discrimination lawsuits, what litigation was like for them,” says Berrey, assistant professor of sociology at UB and a faculty affiliate of the American Bar Foundation (ABF). “There was one point that nearly everyone agreed on: that litigation is unfair.

“Beyond that, their experiences couldn’t have been more different. For plaintiffs, litigation is expensive and can bring real personal hardships. Many end up divorced, depressed, even bankrupt. Employers do not like litigation either, but they usually have the resources and expertise to keep these cases under control.”

The study, “Situated Justice: A Contextual Analysis of Fairness and Inequality in Employment Discrimination Litigation,” published in Law and Society Review, is based on a national random sample of employment civil rights cases and 100 interviews with plaintiffs, defendants, and lawyers who were involved in discrimination suits. Law and Society Review is considered the most-prestigious law and social science journal in the U.S…

“We have a fundamental problem with the legal system,” says Hoffman. “The primary way that the law deals with discrimination at work — litigation — is considered unfair by both parties, and winning in litigation requires considerable financial and legal resources.”

How legitimate is a process if both sides perceive it to be unfair? Of course, the rulings are enforceable so that helps make it legitimate…

I’ve wondered about this a few times recently: how often are court cases “won” or “lost” because of available financial resources? Certain parties would be able to withstand a long trial so does this suggest that the real “burden of proof” is sometimes less about evidence or a strong case and more about outlasting the other side? This also reminds me of something I read recently that suggested most criminal cases in the US tend to be plea bargained because the government(s) could not afford all of the full trials. I understand the interest in limiting “frivolous” lawsuits but at the same time, does the need to have some wealth to wage these lawsuits limit the ability of discriminated employees to win their case in court?

Sociologist to journalists: “Racism: Not Isolated Incidents but Systemic”

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After several recent incidences in East Haven, Connecticut, a sociologist explains why racism is a systemic issue, not a matter of a few racist individuals:

As a sociology professor whose specialties include the study of racism, I am sometimes asked to explain what is happening following such a flurry of racist incidents. That question is based on the faulty assumptions that what is happening now is something new and that what occurred is no more than a disturbing accumulation of isolated incidents of racial bigotry committed by a few Neanderthals who didn’t get the memo that in today’s colorblind America we have moved past all that.

Social structures, racist, or otherwise, don’t just disappear or grow old and die. Consequently, when I get that “what is happening now?” query from the press, I feel like yawning as I mutter, “There you go again.” Lately I have advised reporters to connect the dots. I challenge them to, for once, abandon racism-evasive language such as “race” or “the race issue” and to call the thing what it is, racism, which is by its nature always systemic.

So far, to my knowledge, no reporter has taken my advice. Instead they tend to write stories that, if they even acknowledge a pattern of racist incidents, seem to attribute it to the bad economy, the coming of a full moon or perhaps some foul-smelling concoction that was secretly slipped into our drinking water. Then they go away for another few months; and when still more overtly racist stuff happens, they email again to ask me to explain, once more, what is happening, now.

Unfortunately that type of news reporting supports the dominant response to racism by European Americans — the militant denial of its existence or significance. A very successful racism denial tactic is to conveniently confuse the racial, bigoted attitudes and behaviors of some person of color with systemic racism as a way of suggesting that white racism is no more of a problem than is so-called black racism. On other occasions a person of color may be accused of being a racist for simply bringing up the issue of racism.

This is a message needed for more than just journalists.

I wonder if journalists are any better on this issue than average Americans. On the whole, Americans often privilege individualistic situations to social problems, race or otherwise. White Americans, in particular, would prefer to act like race doesn’t matter and claim that we should move on. I’ve noted before that the reverse should be true: Americans should have to show that race isn’t involved in social situations instead of suggesting it doesn’t matter until there is incontrovertible proof otherwise.

Sociologist: “housing segregation is still a reality”

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A sociologist responds to a recent study about declining residential segregation by suggesting there are still barriers to reducing segregation:

This divergent cinematic representation of Baldwin Hills illustrate the propinquity of the black middle class and the black poor and provides a dramatic example of a widespread phenomenon: that the black middle class is a spatial and social buffer between the white middle class and the black poor…

The treatment of blacks in the housing market provides strong evidence that discrimination played and continues to play an important role in explaining why blacks and whites live in highly segregated neighborhoods…

A residential segregation research finding that I have always found interesting and equally offensive is that Asians, Latinos, and whites all rank blacks as the racial group least desired to have as neighbors. This finding holds up even taking class into consideration: when middle class blacks move into white neighborhoods, whites are still inclined to move…

When you take all this into consideration, it is clear that there is much more to this story than the headlines trumpeting record low levels of residential segregation. Blacks are still more likely to have black neighbors than white ones. And by no means does lower black segregation suggest that we live in a “post-racial” society—a term that Tim Wise recently called a “nonsense term devised by those who would simply rather not deal with the ever-present reality of racism and ongoing racial discrimination.” The take home message should be that race (and class) still matter in terms of residential housing patterns. Yes, segregation is decreasing, but it is still alive and well.

I like how this analysis is broken into three spheres: economics, discrimination, and preferences. In all three areas, the decks are still stacked against blacks, even if the situation has improved somewhat.

I was reminded in reading this analysis about the interplay of race and class. There may be less residential segregation as measured simply as whether racial groups are living near each other or not but that does not account for different classes. And even when you account for class, middle-class blacks are still more likely to live in worse neighborhoods than poorer whites. Has anyone done an adjusted dissimilarity index that accounts for class or even a dissimilarity index that uses class instead of race?

Since I’ve seen others respond to this study, I wonder how much of it is a matter of perspective: the reduced levels of residential segregation are an important marker of progress or the long history of segregation in the US means that these improved figures are only a small step in a long process that still has a ways to go.

63% of the elderly claim to have experienced discrimination

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Discrimination is typically associated with issues that arise involving race and ethnicity and gender. But a recent study suggests a majority of the elderly also say they have recently experienced discrimination:

A startling proportion of older people report that they’ve experienced discrimination: 63 percent, in a study recently published in Research on Aging. The most commonly cited cause? “Thirty percent report being mistreated because of their age,” said the lead author Ye Luo, a Clemson University sociologist. Perceived discrimination because of gender, race or ancestry, disabilities or appearance followed in smaller proportions…

Dr. Luo and her colleagues used national data from the federal Health and Retirement Study to measure what nearly 6,400 people — all older than age 53 when the study began in 2006 – thought about discriminatory behavior. Dr. Luo wasn’t surprised by the high proportion of people who said they had encountered it. That was consistent, she says, with previous studies.

As the researchers had expected, some people were more likely to report discrimination than others. Blacks, those who were separated or divorced or widowed, and those with fewer household assets had higher levels of perceived discrimination, as measured by questionnaires. It was less commonly perceived by whites, by the married or partnered, and by those with more assets…

Interestingly, the discrimination effect was stronger for everyday slights and suspicions (including whether people felt harassed or threatened, or whether they felt others were afraid of them) than for more dramatic events like being denied a job or promotion or being unfairly detained or questioned by police.

The study also suggests the experiences of discrimination are related to poorer health outcomes.

So if this is a common experience, what could society do differently to limit this? Public service announcements? Lessons in elementary school? How much of this is related to a youth-obsessed culture?

I wonder if these issues will only grow as Americans live longer. Also, what might happen if there is more generational conflict over debt, paying into social security, and the differences in wealth between the young and old?

Audit study shows “employers less likely to interview openly gay men for job openings”

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Audit studies have been used for decades to show discrimination by race and sex. In these studies, two otherwise equal candidates are separated by one feature, perhaps race, perhaps first name, perhaps gender. Then the researcher looks at the differing response rates from mortgage companies or landlords or businesses. For example, see this notable 2003 study that showed that whites with a criminal record had better job prospects than blacks with no criminal records. This mode of analysis was recently utilized in an article in the latest issue of the American Journal of Sociology to show differing response rates for gay men looking for a job versus those applicants who were not openly gay:

The study, which is the largest of its kind to look at job discrimination against gay men, found that employers in the South and Midwest were much less likely to offer an interview if an applicant’s resume indicates that he is openly gay. Overall, the study found that gay applicants were 40 percent less likely to be granted an interview than their heterosexual counterparts…

For the study, Tilcsik sent two fictitious but realistic resumes to more than 1,700 entry-level, white collar job openings — positions such as managers, business and financial analysts, sales representatives, customer service representatives, and administrative assistants. The two resumes were very similar in terms of the applicant’s qualifications, but one resume for each opening mentioned that the applicant had been part of a gay organization in college.

“I chose an experience in a gay community organization that could not be easily dismissed as irrelevant to a job application,” Tilcsik writes. “Thus, instead of being just a member of a gay or lesbian campus organization, the applicant served as the elected treasurer for several semesters, managing the organization’s financial operations.”

The second resume Tilcsik sent listed experience in the “Progressive and Socialist Alliance” in place of the gay organization. Since employers are likely to associate both groups with left-leaning political views, Tilcsik could separate any “gay penalty” from the effects of political discrimination.

The results showed that applicants without the gay signal had an 11.5 percent chance of being called for an interview. However, gay applicants had only a 7.2 percent chance. That difference amounts to a 40 percent higher chance of the heterosexual applicant getting a call.

Has this methodology not been used before when looking at discrimination against gays? If not, I’m a little surprised.

The methodology of the audit study is interesting: it essentially is an experiment where one detail between the resumes or applications is changed to isolate its effect. In this study, the detail is what college organization the applicant worked for. It was clever to differentiate between these two particular organizations in order to rule out a political effect.

I assume the next step would be to expand this study to more states/locations and to more job categories beyond “entry-level, white collar job openings”? How much would the results differ if the study involved more blue collar jobs or managerial, white collar jobs?

When I’ve told students about audit studies, several have raised issues of deception: aren’t these fake applicants? Yes, but the harm to the companies is minimal outside of some time spent looking at them. (However, from what I have read about how much time hiring people look at the hundreds of job applications they see for these types of positions, looking at one or more applications wouldn’t seem to matter.) I do wonder if hiring people have ever spotted these applications from researchers – or the pool of applications is simply so broad that they see all sorts of interesting things.

Having to “prove” racism versus assuming that it is a common feature of American life

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In defending some comments she made regarding white liberals and their support for President Obama, Melissa Harris-Perry looks at three common objections to conversations about race in the United States: “prove it,” “I have black friends,” and “who made you an expert?” While these are all familiar responses, the first one is a particularly sociological point that raises questions about how we view society and how this plays out in court:

The first is a common strategy of asking any person of color who identifies a racist practice or pattern to “prove” that racism is indeed the causal factor. This is typically demanded by those who are certain of their own purity of racial motivation. The implication is if one cannot produce irrefutable evidence of clear, blatant and intentional bias, then racism must be banned as a possibility. But this is both silly as an intellectual claim and dangerous as a policy standard.

In a nation with the racial history of the United States I am baffled by the idea that non-racism would be the presumption and that it is racial bias which must be proved beyond reasonable doubt. More than 100 years of philosophical, psychological and sociological research that begins, at least, with the work of W.E.B. Du Bois has mapped the deeply entrenched realities of racial bias on the American consciousness. If anything, racial bias, not racial innocence is the better presumption when approaching American political decision-making. Just fifty years ago, nearly all white Democrats in the US South shifted parties rather than continuing to affiliate with the party of civil rights. No one can prove that this decision was made on the basis of racial bias, but the historical trend is so clear as to require mental gymnastics to imagine this was a choice not motivated by race.

Progressives and liberals should be particularly careful when they demand proof of intentionality rather than evidence of disparate impact in conversations about racism. Recall that initially the 1964 Civil Rights Act made “disparate impact” a sufficient evidentiary claim for racial bias. In other words, a plaintiff did not need to prove that anyone was harboring racial animus in their hearts, they just needed to show that the effects of a supposedly race neutral policy actually had a discernible, disparate impact on people of color. The doctrine of disparate impact helped to clear many discriminatory housing and employment policies off the books.

Michelle Alexander brilliantly demonstrates in The New Jim Crow, the pernicious effect of the Supreme Court moving away from disparate impact as a standard to forcing plaintiffs to demonstrate racist intention. This new standard has encouraged the explosive growth of incarceration of African-Americans, turning a blind eye to disparate impact while it demands “proof” of racial bias.

I believe we must be careful and judicious in our conversations about racism. But I also believe that those who demand proof of interpersonal intention to create a racist outcome are missing the point about how racism works. Racism is not exclusively about hooded Klansmen; it is also about the structures of bias and culture of privilege that infect the left as well.

I like how Harris-Perry flips this objection: looking at the broad sweep of American history, from its days of more overt racism to more covert racism today, why don’t we assume that racism plays a role in everyday life in this society? Can we really assume, as many seem to do, that the issues with race ended at some point, either in the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s or in the election of minority politicians or the ending of segregationist society in the South? With plenty of indicators of racial disparity today, from online comments from young adults to incarceration rates to homeownership to wealth to residential segregation, perhaps we should we see racism as a default feature of American society until proven otherwise.

Harris-Perry hints at one reason why it is difficult for Americans to see the effects of racism: the court system moving to the burden of proof shifting to “proving” “racist intention.” Without the proverbial smoking gun, it then becomes more difficult to develop arguments just from data and patterns, even if they are overwhelming. While the recent court case involving gender discrimination at Walmart and sociologists siding with the prosecution isn’t about race, it illustrates some of these principles. The data suggests discrimination may have taken place as more women did not receive promotions or pay raises. But without “proof” that this was a deliberate Walmart policy meant to harm women, the numbers may not be enough. The same holds true with race: “statistical discrimination,” stereotypes about large groups of people, may be okay because no individual or corporation can be held directly responsible for the outcome.

The NBA, referees, Malcolm Gladwell, and race

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Henry Abbott at Truehoop reexamines an issue that emerged a few years ago with a paper written by several economists: do NBA officials exhibit implicit race bias when calling fouls? Here is Abbott’s take on the findings and implications of the original study:

Basically, the more black referees on the court, the better the calls for black players. And the reverse is true for white players. The entire combined effect is fairly limited, around 4 percent, but the pattern is certainly there.

All of this means not all that much about NBA referees, other than that they’re human. The research was about human decision making in the workplace, and the referees were just a handy group to study.

And nothing about these findings do much to undermine the NBA’s position as one of the most successfully race-blind organizations on the planet.

Abbott writes that the NBA essentially lost the scientific battle as experts pored over the economists’ paper as well as the NBA’s study and found the NBA’s study to be lacking. (It is also interesting to note that the economists made all of their data available online, making it open for scrutiny from others.)

Malcolm Gladwell enters the picture because of his book Blink where he looks at how people make quick decisions. In instances where race matters, such as calling fouls or making a decision about whether a suspect is about to pull a gun, a person making a decision nearly instantaneously makes judgments based on knowledge or associations they make about different races. Abbott sums up this research on race and judgments (read more about it at the Project Implicit website):

The lesson Gladwell, Winfrey, Harvard researchers and others took from this was about environment: We may have reached a point where a lot of explicit racism (the kinds of things we’d associate with hate speech, the klan, segregation and the like) is largely behind us. But our brains are still bombarded with images of “bad” black people and “good” white ones, which affects our quick reactions to white and black faces.

More broadly, this lines up with sociological thinkers who have suggested that in recent decades, racism and discrimination has become less overt and more covert. But just because racism appears less present doesn’t mean that the problem has been solved or that we have entered into a color-blind world. Gladwell and others suggest that it is even built into our snap judgments.

As Abbott suggests, how the NBA responds to this remains to be seen. The initial response of strongly denying the economists’ research appears no longer tenable. For a league that aspires to become global (involving even more ethnicities and races) and also wants to gain a larger audience in America (fighting football and baseball as the big sports), recognizing that this issue exists and also demonstrating a willingness to work at reducing the effect may matter quite a bit.