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Combating Racial Discrimination in the 21st Century
By Gary Feuerberg
Epoch Times Washington, D.C. Staff Mar 05, 2007
IMPLEMENTING A NEW STRATEGY: Naomi C. Earp, Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) presided over a hearing on E-RACE, a federal initiative to address race and color discrimination in today's workplace. (Gary Feuerberg/ Epoch Times)
IMPLEMENTING A NEW STRATEGY: Naomi C. Earp, Chair of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) presided over a hearing on E-RACE, a federal initiative to address race and color discrimination in today's workplace. (Gary Feuerberg/ Epoch Times)Racial discrimination in the workplace is undoubtedly less prevalent than in 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was enacted, but it is far from being totally eliminated. Its primary forms now are more subtle and less blatant and often not even intentional. To confront the new challenges of racial and color discrimination, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) rolled out a new national initiative "to bring a fresh, 21st century approach to combating racism" on Feb 28 at its headquarters in Washington, D.C. The initiative is called E-RACE, which stands for Eradicating Racism and Colorism from Employment.
The EEOC enforces federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Racial discrimination is the most frequent type of charge filing with the EEOC. In fiscal year (FY) 2006, more than 27,000 charges of racial discrimination were filed with EEOC offices nationwide, which accounts for 36% of the agency's private sector caseload.
Color discrimination in employment appears to be on the rise, based on EEOC complaints. Color discrimination occurs when a person is discriminated against based on skin pigmentation—lightness or darkness of the skin—complexion, shade, or tone, according to the EEOC Compliance Manual. In FY 1992, the EEOC received 374 formal complaints alleging color-based discrimination; by FY 2006, the number had risen to 1,241. The EEOC cites several studies from academia supporting the commonplace nature of color-based discrimination.
For example, a University of Georgia survey purports that a light-skinned Black male with only a BA and basic work experience would receive preference over a dark-skinned Black male with an MBA and basic work experience.
Robert A. Canino, an EEOC attorney from the Dallas district office, cites a recent Vanderbilt Law School study, based on a government survey of legal immigrants from around the world, that those with the lightest skin earned an average of 8-15% more than similar immigrants with much darker skin.
The E-RACE initiative is the EEOC's way to respond to the contemporary causes of race and color discrimination by identifying specific issues and barriers to a workplace free of discrimination. Towards this objective, the Commission invited several experts to testify on overcoming race and color discrimination in employment today, and the new forms discrimination is taking.
E-RACE is also a public relations effort, to educate the public, and particularly engage businesses, on the pernicious nature of discrimination, and to suggest training and some best practices that can be followed to foster inclusiveness and diversity. Because EEOC did not acquire additional resources or funding to enhance its efforts towards eliminating racial discrimination, the E-RACE initiative is solely an administrative change in emphasis.
Discrimination Today More Subtle
"At this point in our history, discrimination is more sophisticated than the Jim Crow days. Given that, our solution to eradicating it must also be more sophisticated," said attorney Darrell S. Gay, who represents corporate and government clients in labor, and employee discrimination matters.
"…the bulk of the race and color discrimination in the workplace is subtle and not so easily susceptible of proof. For example, an employer might not interview a candidate because he or she associates the candidate's name with a people of certain race or color," said Professor Diane A. Seltzer, an attorney who represents and advises employees and employers. The candidate could only conjecture why he or she was not interviewed and could not prove discrimination in a court of law.
Seltzer recommended that the Commission "sell" the value of diversity to employers, given that eradicating discriminatory acts alone won't address the underlying causes.
"Rather than believing the company is best served by having a workforce that mirrors (literally) the people in charge, or the people making the hiring decisions, the company needs to find value in embracing diversity and in the idea that people from different background can bring different and wonderful assets to the table," said Seltzer.
Attorney Gay said that diversity is "good business" practice. He points out that the U.S. Census in 2005 reported that one third of the population (98 million) is minority, and so it makes sense to have a diversified work force too.
Blatant Discrimination Still Happens
At the hearing, several EEOC regional attorneys spoke about recent cases of discrimination in the hiring, promoting and firing of employees. In a suit in Iowa:
"…a Black applicant for a warehouse position, with superior qualifications can wait two hours for a two or three minute interview and no job offer, while white applicants wait less, are interviewed longer and walk out with jobs in their pockets," said John C. Hendrickson, regional attorney in the Chicago district.
Robert Canino, an attorney from the Dallas district office, spoke how even in 2007, cases occur that are not subtle.
"…we find the hangman's noses defended as rodeo art or the rope actually put around the neck of a Black employee; the KKK impersonations and drawings, Nazi insignia or 'coon hunt' flyers….cases with 'Whites Only' sign over the water fountain, the references to 'boy,' 'monkeys,' 'slaves,' and, of course, the 'n-word.'…"
Another example of blatant racism was cited by William R. Tamayo, regional attorney for the San Francisco district office. In 2002, a Sega manager wanted to terminate 12 Filipino-American game testers, one of whom testified at the hearing. The contractor for Sega, Spherion, was ordered by the Sega manager to inform the men not to come back to work. The reason was because a non-Filipino employee complained of favoritism by his Filipino supervisor, who was not related to any of the twelve workers. The young workers—college students, good employees, sons of immigrants—were devastated by the firings based solely on family origin. The EEOC filed a lawsuit against Sega and Spherion and two years after the firings, a settlement was reached and some of the workers were reinstated too.
Unconscious Discrimination
While examples of virulent racism still occur even in 2007, the changing societal norms and attitudes, and enforcement of anti-discrimination laws have made this form of discrimination far less common in the workplace, especially in the hiring. Only about one employer in five are the "hard-core discriminators," says Dr. Marc Bendick, an economist, a frequent witness in employment discrimination cases, and a consultant on workforce diversity management to some of the nation's largest employers.
Corporate America's changed position on the value of diversity in the workforce is indicated in the Bakke case in 1978, where affirmative action was challenged in entry to Medical School of the University of California (Davis). At the time, no friendly ("amicus") briefs were submitted in favor of affirmative action by "big business," while the Chamber of Commerce opposed it, notes attorney Weldon H. Latham, an advisor to businesses and the EEOC. In contrast, later (2003) in the Michigan case (Grutter) concerning the use of race as a factor in admittance to the law school, 70 of the nation's most prestigious companies, led by General Motors, filed friendly briefs in support of affirmative action, says Latham.
"By finding that there is a compelling state interest for race conscious affirmative action programs, the [Supreme] Court reiterated what the vast majority of Corporate America had already recognized—efforts to create racial diversity are essential to the achievement of organizational success," said Attorney Gay.
Specific discriminatory acts today much more often lie in the roots of a corporate culture that is unconscious that it is practicing discrimination, says Bendick. Something like 80% of employers are simply unaware of bias in their decision-making when hiring and promoting employees. He suggests explicit training "to make employment decision-makers aware of unconscious bias and provide them with practical behavioral tools to minimize its effects."
Some of the experts who testified made suggestions for how well-intended employers could avoid committing acts of racial discrimination in recruiting and in the work environment. These include methods to increase the pool of qualified minorities who apply. For instance, employers can make an effort to widen their recruitment on college campuses to include the predominately African American colleges.
Hiring is only one facet of the problem; retention is also important. Employers should ensure that race and color discrimination are not barriers to employees' success once they are on the job. Employers may not realize that race or color is influencing their decisions in making work assignments, performance evaluations, training opportunities, discipline or even casual comments. Practices that appear neutral to the employer may have the unintended effect of limiting employment opportunities for some racial groups.
Copyright 2000 - 2007 Epoch Times International
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