Racial Discrimination In Employment Research Articles

Race, ethnicity, and discrimination at work: a new analysis of legal protections and gaps in all 193 UN countries

PurposeWhile only one aspect of fulfilling equal rights, effectively addressing workplace discrimination is integral to creating economies, and countries, that allow for everyone's full and equal participation.Design/methodology/approachLabor, anti-discrimination, and other relevant pieces of legislation were identified through the International Labor Organization's NATLEX database, supplemented with legislation identified through country websites. For each country, two researchers independently coded legislation and answered questions about key policy features. Systematic quality checks and outlier verifications were conducted.FindingsMore than 1 in 5 countries do not explicitly prohibit racial discrimination in employment. 54 countries fail to prohibit unequal pay based on race. 107 countries prohibit racial and/or ethnic discrimination but do not explicitly require employers to take preventive measures against discrimination. The gaps are even larger with respect to multiple and intersectional discrimination. 112 countries fail to prohibit discrimination based on both migration status and race and/or ethnicity; 103 fail to do so for foreign national origin and race and/or ethnicity.Practical implicationsBoth recent and decades-old international treaties and agreements require every country globally to uphold equal rights regardless of race. However, specific national legislation that operationalizes these commitments and prohibits discrimination in the workplace is essential to their impact. This research highlights progress and gaps that must be addressed.Originality/valueThis is the first study to measure legal protections against employment discrimination based on race and ethnicity in all 193 UN countries. This study also examines protection in all countries from discrimination on the basis of characteristics that have been used in a number of settings as a proxy for racial/ethnic discrimination and exclusion, including SES, migration status, and religion.

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION SOCIAL ISSUES IN PRESENT INDIA

Persistent racial inequality in employment, housing, and a wide range of other social domains has renewed interest in the possible role of discrimination. And yet, unlike in the pre-civil rights era, when racial prejudice and discrimination were overt and widespread, today discrimination is less readily identifiable, posing problems for social scientific conceptualization and measurement. This article reviews the relevant literature on discrimination, with an emphasis on racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer interactions. We begin by defining discrimination and discussing relevant methods of measurement. We then provide an overview of major findings from studies of discrimination in each of the four domains; and, finally, we turn to a discussion of the individual, organizational, and structural mechanisms that may underlie contemporary forms of discrimination. This discussion seeks to orient readers to some of the key debates in the study of discrimination and to provide a roadmap for those interested in building upon this long and important line of research.

The Cumulative Costs of Racism and the Bill for Black Reparations

Two major procedures for establishing the monetary value of a plan for reparations for Black American descendants of US slavery are considered in this paper: 1) Enumeration of atrocities and assignment of a dollar value to each as a prelude to adding up the total, and 2) Identification of a summary measure that captures the dollar amount of the cumulative, intergenerational effects of anti-Black atrocities. Under the first approach, the itemization strategy, we assess wage costs to the enslaved of bondage; financial gains to the perpetrators of slavery; damages to Black victims of post-Civil War white massacres and lynchings; losses from discrimination in the provision of the home buying supports from the Federal Housing Administration and the G.I. Bill; and income penalties due to racial discrimination in employment. Under the second approach, the global indicator strategy, we calculate the present value of providing 40 acres of land to freed slaves in 1865 and the current wealth gap between Black and White Americans. We conclude that the latter standard, the racial wealth gap, provides the best gauge for the size of the bill for Black reparations.

Walter F. White: The NAACP's Ambassador for Racial Justice by Robert L. Zangrando and Ronald L. Lewis

Reviewed by: Walter F. White: The NAACP's Ambassador for Racial Justice by Robert L. Zangrando and Ronald L. Lewis Guorong Xie Walter F. White: The NAACP's Ambassador for Racial Justice. By Robert L. Zangrando and Ronald L. Lewis. (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2019. Pp. viii, 445. $59.99, ISBN 978-1-946684-62-2.) This book is a monographic study of the life of prominent civil rights leader Walter F. White, who fought for racial justice throughout his lifetime. It consists of three parts. The first part describes White's early career, focusing on how he demonstrated his coordination, organization, and leadership abilities as an assistant to Executive Secretary James Weldon Johnson of the NAACP. White worked against the Ku Klux Klan and made investigations on lynching, which successfully evoked the conscience of American society and got the support of the House of Representatives for antilynching legislation. These successes not only enhanced the NAACP's influence in the country but also earned White a good reputation. He was promoted to be the executive secretary of the NAACP in 1929, thus initiating his quarter-century-long leadership of the civil rights movement. The second part of the book explains how White became a civil rights leader who had powerful lobbying capacity. He tapped into the rising political power of African Americans to expand their influence in the Democratic Party and the federal government. White also had direct access to President Franklin D. Roosevelt via Eleanor Roosevelt, which made it possible for him to gain support from the federal government for civil rights. In addition, the Four Freedoms proposed by President Roosevelt became weapons for White to compel the federal government to forbid racial discrimination in employment and ameliorate the conditions of African American soldiers, which laid a solid foundation for the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The third part of the book describes White's civil rights activities during the early period of the Cold War. Based on realistic considerations, White chose to cooperate with the federal government to remove any suspected communist members in the NAACP on one hand, and he was actively engaged in cultural diplomacy and devoted his energy to transnational political activities on the other hand. He lobbied the U.S. government to give economic development aid to nations like India and Haiti in order to win more support from the Third World for America. His strategy was different from that of other civil rights leaders and helped African Americans make progress, even during the Cold War. Unlike the mainstream narrative on White, Walter F. White: The NAACP's Ambassador for Racial Justice merges White's struggle for racial justice into the long civil rights movement, which enables readers to have a full picture of the history of the movement. The civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s never did run smoothly, and its achievements were inseparable from the efforts of African American leaders, as represented by White, in the first half of the twentieth century. The book also makes contributions by examining White's struggle for civil rights from a transnational perspective. White linked African Americans' fate tightly with that of people of color worldwide through participating in the Pan-African movement, anticolonial movement, and overseas civil rights activities. These transnational political activities compelled the American government to respond to African Americans' demands and created a more favorable environment for eliminating racial discrimination at home. [End Page 749] Two aspects are neglected in the book, and they are worthy of attention. First, Robert L. Zangrando and Ronald L. Lewis do not explain clearly why the NAACP's struggles shifted from antilynching legislation to school integration in the 1940s. Neither do they explain how White, as executive secretary of the NAACP, exerted influence on these changes. Second, White devoted his efforts to lobbying the upper class and paid little attention to African Americans' daily life and economic problems, a fact on which the authors do not make any critical comments. Guorong Xie Wuhan University Copyright © 2020 The Southern Historical Association

A BLURRED CASE

AbstractMuch of the pivotal debate concerning the validity of affirmative action is situated in a legal context of defending or challenging claims that there may be broad societal gains from increased diversity. Race-conscious affirmative action policies originally advanced legal sanctions to promote racial equity in the United States. Today, increasingly detached from its historical context, defense or rejection of affirmative action is otherwise upheld to achieve diversity. A “diversity” rationale for affirmative action calls for increasing tolerance of the “other,” reducing negative stereotypes, and moderating prejudice as goals—all objectives that deviate from the former aim of race-targeted inclusion intended to resolve racial discrimination in employment and college admissions. Diversity policy provides a tapered defense for affirmative action, one detached from principles of justice and equity. The current article suggests that, despite the fact that the ostensible benefits of “racial inclusion as diversity” may be the remaining legal prop for affirmative action in the U.S., there is a need to consider whether diversity intrinsically can engender the benefits that affirmative action policy seeks to provide.

Language skills and homophilous hiring discrimination: Evidence from gender and racially differentiated applications

This paper investigates the importance of ethnic homophily in the hiring discrimination process, and provides a novel test for statistical discrimination. Our evidence comes from a correspondence test performed in France, in which we use three different kinds of ethnic identification: French sounding names, North African sounding names, and foreign sounding names with no clear ethnic association. Within both male and female groups, we show that all non-French applicants are equally discriminated against when compared to French applicants. This indicates that racial discrimination in employment is directed against members of non-majority ethnic groups, and highlights the importance of favoritism for in-group members. Moreover we find direct evidence of homophily: recruiters with European names are more likely to call back French named applicants and female recruiters are more likely to call back women. The paper also directly tests for statistical discrimination by adding a signal related to language skill ability in all resumes sent to half the job offers. Although the signal inclusion significantly impacts the discrimination experienced by non-French females, it is much weaker for male minorities.

Are Firms That Discriminate More Likely to Go Out of Business?

Economic theory has long maintained that employers pay a price for engaging in racial discrimination. According to Gary Becker’s seminal work on this topic and the rich literature that followed, racial preferences unrelated to productivity are costly and, in a competitive market, should drive discriminatory employers out of business. Though a dominant theoretical proposition in the field of economics, this argument has never before been subjected to direct empirical scrutiny. This research pairs an experimental audit study of racial discrimination in employment with an employer database capturing information on establishment survival, examining the relationship between observed discrimination and firm longevity. Results suggest that employers who engage in hiring discrimination are less likely to remain in business six years later.

Still no problem here? Responses to anti-discrimination legislation among trade unions in EU countries

This article looks at the responses of European trade unions to EU legislation against racial discrimination. Previous research has revealed great variety between EU countries in the nature and extent of union responses to immigration and issues of racial discrimination. However, the EU Racial Equality Directive, adopted in 2000, has become a factor for potential convergence in trade union policies in this field. All EU countries now have in place legislation forbidding racial discrimination in employment, and for some this has been an entirely new development. The article draws on research by two EU agencies – the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions and the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights – carried out 14 years apart, covering all EU Member States. Their research throws light on the differences that exist between EU Member States in trade unions’ awareness of, and receptiveness to, the Racial Equality Directive, as well as on changes in union attitudes and policies that have occurred since the 1990s.

The Sociology of Discrimination: Racial Discrimination in Employment, Housing, Credit, and Consumer Markets.

Persistent racial inequality in employment, housing, and a wide range of other social domains has renewed interest in the possible role of discrimination. And yet, unlike in the pre-civil rights era, when racial prejudice and discrimination were overt and widespread, today discrimination is less readily identifiable, posing problems for social scientific conceptualization and measurement. This article reviews the relevant literature on discrimination, with an emphasis on racial discrimination in employment, housing, credit markets, and consumer interactions. We begin by defining discrimination and discussing relevant methods of measurement. We then provide an overview of major findings from studies of discrimination in each of the four domains; and, finally, we turn to a discussion of the individual, organizational, and structural mechanisms that may underlie contemporary forms of discrimination. This discussion seeks to orient readers to some of the key debates in the study of discrimination and to provide a roadmap for those interested in building upon this long and important line of research.

Soapy: A Biography of G. Mennen Williams by Thomas J. Noer

Book Reviews 155 Leidenberger deftly shows the importance of organized labor in the politics of reform in Chicago. However, one wonders whether the CFL is properly caUed a trade union. By backing sympathy strikes, entering politics, preaching solidarity across trades, and including women and minorities, the CFL's trade unionism either evolved toward or became something more revolutionary. Given the proposed statist solution to the streetcar issue, the influence of socialistic people in the movement (e.g., Henry Demarest Lloyd, Clarence Darrow, and Upton Sinclair), and the city's strong socialist movement (which was downplayed in this book), perhaps a "socia?st moment" better describes the coalescence and fragmentation of forces in Progressive Era Chicago. Whatever one caUs it, popular democracy gripped Chicago irrespective of class just as in Hazen Pingree's progressive Detroit and Victor Berger's socia?st Milwaukee. Thomas F. Jorsch Ferris State University Thomas J. Noer. Soapy:A Biography ofG. Mennen Williams. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Pp. 419. BibHography. IUustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth, $35.00. G. Mennen "Soapy" WiUiams was the Democratic governor of Michigan from 1948 to 1960, head of the State Department's African Bureau from 1961 to 1966, ambassador to the PhUippines in 1968, and a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court from 1970 to 1986. Despite such an impressive r?sum?, Thomas Noer's Soapy is the first ftdl-length biography of a man who was one of the Hons of twentieth-century Michigan poHtical history. Soapy WiUiams was a comp?cated figure. He was an unabashed ?beral who openly espoused Christian principles. He was an outspoken champion of racial equa?ty when such a position was far from the norm. His down-to-earth campaign style, complete with his trademark green and-white bow tie and folksy demeanor, masked an aggressive poHtical infighter with a sometimes inflated sense of his own correctness. As Noer puts it, Soapy "claimed he could say 'heUo' in seventeen languages. He had a hard time saying, Tm wrong' in any" (p. 9). Soapy's career offered both remarkable successes and stinging setbacks. As governor of Michigan, WiUiams arranged for construction 156 Michigan Historical Review of the Mackinac Bridge and helped to prevent racial discrimination in employment, but he is often remembered most for his squabbles with the RepubHcan-controUed legislature that led Michigan to declare bankruptcy in 1959. He earned national attention for shouting down the otherwise unanimous selection of Lyndon Johnson as John Kennedy's running mate in 1960 due to Johnson's purportedly tepid support for civ? rights. According to Noer, Soapy's inabUity to compromise his ideals for poHtical gain Hkely destroyed his hopes for a shot at the presidency in 1960. Noer isn't shy about criticizing WiUiams for the poHtical cost this stubbornness exacted in terms of his personal ambitions, but he does find his intransigence honorable: "It is his very refusal to compromise, modify, or moderate his positions that makes him admirable. The very traits that doomed his poHtical career are those that are most deserving of praise" (p. 355). Noer is not afraid to stray from the conventions of poHtical biography either; he adds touching flourishes that include love letters from Williams to his wife, as well as excerpts from the thousands of testimonials that poured in from Michigan citizens upon Soapy's death in 1988. Displaying a solid grasp of the nuances of mid-century poHtics, international diplomacy, and Soapy's own character, Noer turns WilHams's Hfe into an engrossing story of power, idealism, and a passionate struggle for social justice. Soapy may be the first biography of WiUiams, but given the impressive nature of Noer's work itmay be the only one we need. John R. Thiel Kirtland Community CoUege Janet Sjaarda Sheeres. Son of Secession: Douwe J. Vander Werp. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2006. Pp. 231. Appendix. BibHography. IUustrations. Index. Paper, $25.00. The Reverend Douwe J. Vander Werp (1811-1876) was one of the people who helped sustain the Dutch-American colony Albertus C. Van Raalte founded in west Michigan in 1846. From the moment he arrived in 1864 to pastor a church near HoUand, Vander Werp began to influence...

Race and Space: Hiring Practices of Los Angeles Electronics Firms

ABSTRACT:Some spatial mismatch theorists have incorporated racial discrimination in employment into their quantitative models as a causal factor, in addition to spatial barriers, in explaining the unemployment problems of Blacks. They generally argue that racist employers are more likely to locate in the suburbs, rather than the inner city, which helps to explain why Blacks are less likely to be employed there. We take a qualitative approach to the spatial mismatch question on the basis of personal interviews with employers in the electronics industry in Los Angeles. We found that employers in black neighborhoods were just as likely as employers in non-black neighborhoods to discriminate in their hiring practices and hold preferences for workers from other racial and ethnic backgrounds. Consequently, black residential proximity to firms is unlikely to completely overcome barriers associated with racial discrimination in employment. We argue that spatial mismatch models face limitations to analyzing racial discrimination in employment that are inherent in their quantitative models.

To Market, to Market...

State intervention in the practice of pharmacy to ensure access to drugs is authorized as an exception to the norms of a free market. But state intervention in the practice of pharmacy to ensure freedom of conscience is required as the rule according to the norms of a free country, which insist upon minimum standards for the preservation of human dignity.State intervention to safeguard freedom of conscience typically takes the form, not of limitless compulsion, but of limited prohibitions. Employers and others are obliged only to abstain from certain kinds of wrongful conduct, not compelled to do all that legislators or “interest group armies” think desirable. In this respect, protection of conscience legislation is actually less onerous than legislated medical or pharmaceutical mandates. Like laws prohibiting racial discrimination in employment and education, such legislation may be seen as an unwelcome constraint in a free market, but it is a bulwark of liberty in a free country.Problems of access to drugs should be left to the marketplace (which is competent to manage the distribution of goods and services), while acknowledging the duty of the state to intervene when and to the extent necessary to ensure that minimal human needs are met. However, deprivation of freedom of conscience is a fundamental injustice, and justice is the primary concern of the state. Thus, the state acts completely within its proper sphere of competence when it intervenes to the extent necessary to protect the dignity of the human person by enacting protection of conscience legislation.

Racial Discrimination in Employment in Canada

The purpose of this study is to examine recent developments in the legal remedies for racial discrimination in employment in Canada.

Statistical Discrimination in Employment

The phenomenon of statistical discrimination may take on increasing importance in the future as “traditional” prejudice-based discrimination slowly fades. This article considers how statistical discrimination compares with perspectives on discrimination in sociology, economics, and law. Statistical discrimination fits well with mainstream perspectives in economics, suggesting it is likely to be a common practice and endure even as racial prejudice declines. Statistical discrimination is less central in sociological perspectives on discrimination because they tend to focus on prejudice-based discrimination, ethnic conflict and stratification, and how ethnic group interests are embedded in social institutions. In the area of law, statistical discrimination is treated differently in different situations—sometimes allowable, other times prohibited. The authors note some characteristics of statistical discrimination that set it apart from other forms of discrimination and consider whether standard policies aimed at reducing racial discrimination in employment are likely to be effective in combating statistical discrimination.

Evaluating the U.S. Policy of Using Private Lawsuits to Remedy Employment Discrimination

The primary mechanism for addressing employment discrimination in the United States is complaint-based, through private law suits seeking tort-like damages awards. No other nation relies so heavily on a private bar of employment discrimination lawyers, relying on fee-shifting statutes and contingent fees, to enforce its civil rights policies. This paper relies on US census data and empirical studies of discrimination litigation to argue that the mechanism is ineffective in addressing the problem of racial discrimination in employment.

Architecture, race, identity and multiculturalism: a radical ‘White’ perspective

Beyond racial discrimination in employment lies the assumption that modern and post modern architecture is above and beyond culture. This article examines the process of design, the formation of ideas in the subject of architecture and the ‘unconscious’ assumptions behind the stated positions of the founders of Modern Architecture to see how this comes about. It argues that change could be brought about by taking a new ‘multicultural’ and ‘post‐colonial’ approach to architectural history and theory, by making architecture as a profession accessible, by working with minority communities and cultures, and by linking with academies and practices in less developed countries. But for this to happen, those with the power to change have to call for and support this change.

Leaders in the Court and Community: Z. Alexander Looby, Avon N. Williams, Jr., and the Legal Fight for Civil Rights in Tennessee, 1940-1970

Z. Alexander Looby (1899-1972) and Avon N. Williams, Jr. (1921-1994) were the most prominent civil rights attorneys working in Tennessee during the post-World War II period. They filed dozens of lawsuits pertaining to school desegregation, racial discrimination in employment and public accommodations, and other areas. Looby and Williams's work in school desegregation cases alone encompassed every major case in the state (with the exception of Northcross v. Board of Education), and entered the highest realms of legal activity. Federal judges at the circuit, appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court levels cited and considered many of their cases as the post-Brown v. Board of Education (1954) litigation world unfolded. Looby and Williams also followed their civil rights work into the political world--Looby as Nashville city councilman and Williams as state senator--where they became part of the first major resurgence of black lawmakers in Tennessee since Reconstruction. As Professor Bobby L. Lovett argued, electoral poli tics became the next arena in the fight for equal rights, despite suggestions in the mass media from the early 1970s that the Civil Rights Movement ended when sit-ins, mass marches, and freedom rides were no longer the dominant strategy. (1) In this sense, Looby and Williams set important examples by extending their legal skills beyond the courtroom and into legislative bodies. But more fundamentally, Looby and Williams's civil rights work in the legal and political arenas made them among the most important and widely recognized leaders in Nashville's African American community, and beyond. In addition to legal and political activities, they served their community in numerous other ways that included the churches, schools, and civic organizations. (2) Looby and Williams countered a deeply imbedded tradition in this regard, for prior to their work, many (perhaps most) whites and African Americans alike held little respect for black attorneys in general. For Looby and Williams to emerge as prominent community l eaders presented a impressive example to the contrary, to say the least. AFRICAN AMERICAN ATTORNEYS AND LEGAL ASPECTS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Many historians have tended to neglect the legal aspects of the Civil Rights Movement, when in fact, litigation and other matters related to the law were often crucial determinants of success or failure. For example, the legendary Montgomery, Alabama, Bus Boycott (1955-56) involved absolutely indispensable legal work that fundamentally influenced the final outcome of that historic and symbolic event. (3) In contrast, an absence of legal help often proved disastrous for civil rights activists, particularly when local and state authorities passed discriminatory laws, issued injunctions against activists, sanctioned massive arrests, and otherwise attempted to enforce segregation or disrupt organized protests. (4) As legal scholars Donald Barnett King and Charles W. Quick observed in 1965, Both positively and negatively, [law] has been instrumental in defining the rights of the Negro in almost every realm of life. (5) Many scholars have almost completely ignored the leadership role of African American attorneys within their immediate communities. The scholarship has also tended to remain rooted in an earlier, disparaging view of black lawyers, who were unfairly caught in a vicious cycle during the Jim Crow era. Before the mid-1940s, these attorneys struggled for respect against the odds of discriminatory legal education, lack of esteem in the black community, inadmissibility to bar associations, shortage of honorable clients, and mistreatment at the hands of racist judges and court officials. African Americans also suffered discrimination in law school admissions. If they managed to earn a law degree, they immediately encountered further discrimination in the legal system. Since a racist and predominantly white society favored white lawyers in the courtroom, many African Americans were disinclined to hire lawyers of their own race. …

Addressing Systemic Racial Discrimination in Employment: The Health Canada Case and Implications of Legislative Change

The 1997 Human Rights Tribunal decision on racial discrimination at Health Canada, specifically addressing glass-ceiling barriers to the promotion of visible minorities to senior management, provides an effective illustration of the subtle and elusive nature of this form of discrimination, the complex evidence required for legal proof, and the rationale for employment-equity remedies. Public participation was critical to the case. It helped identify and interpret critical testimony and documents, mobilize resources for an employee survey and expert testimony, and develop a detailed remedial proposal. Under the 1996 amendments to the Employment Equity Act and the Canadian Human Rights Act responsibility for systemic discrimination has changed, replacing the demonstrated potential of the human-rights complaints process with the broader coverage of a new audit-based employment equity process. The Health Canada experience suggests that a key to this trade-off is whether limited opportunities for public input can be enhanced. Implications for legal strategies and broader policy to address systemic racial discrimination are discussed.

HOW DID LABOUR MARKET RACIAL DISCRIMINATION EVOLVE AFTER THE END OF APARTHEID?

This paper seeks to estimate the degree of racially discriminatory labour practices in South Africa and their development during the first five years in power of the multiracial government. It successively presents three econometric studies, which allow evaluating the extent of racial discrimination in employment, in the access to high skilled occupations and in earnings. It is shown that nowadays discrimination account for between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of the racial gaps, depending on the type of inequality regarded. Turning to the evolution of discrimination between 1993 and 1999, it appears that only discrimination in employment has decreased during the period considered whereas occupational and wage discrimination slightly strengthened.

Promoting Civil Rights through the Welfare State: How Medicare Integrated Southern Hospitals

Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawed segregation and banned racial discrimination in employment and education, compliance was uneven across institutional spheres. Racial integration proceeded more rapidly and smoothly in the health care system than in other institutions because the new Medicare program, the largest expansion of the welfare state since the New Deal, provided the leverage to force health care providers to comply with the law. In this paper, I extend the axiom that the welfare state is a mechanism of social stratification to theorize processes of racial stratification. Drawing upon power resource and feminist theories of the welfare state, I argue that the welfare state can promote racial equality if 1) political resources are available to challenge racially-discriminatory practices; 2) institutions that reproduce systems of oppression are incorporated into the public sphere; 3) the rules and conditions for the distribution of benefits support the objective of racial equality; and 4) the benefits are provided on a continuous and universal basis.