tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/hiring-discrimination-18781/articlesHiring Discrimination – The Conversation2023-09-22T12:29:56Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2084232023-09-22T12:29:56Z2023-09-22T12:29:56ZBiases against Black-sounding first names can lead to discrimination in hiring, especially when employers make decisions in a hurry − new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/549130/original/file-20230919-23-y3ipbc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C116%2C5301%2C2563&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What role will race play in determining who gets the job?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/everyones-grabbed-their-easiest-prep-tool-royalty-free-image/1174452924?phrase=hiring+job+candidates&adppopup=true">Cecilie_Arcurs/E+ via Getty Image</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Because names are among the first things you learn about someone, they can influence first impressions. </p>
<p>That this is particularly true for names associated with Black people came to light in 2004 with the release of a study that found employers <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/0002828042002561">seeing identical resumes</a> were 50% more likely to call back an applicant with <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/2020/top-20-whitest-blackest-names/story?id=2470131">stereotypical white names like Emily or Greg</a> versus applicants with names like Jamal or Lakisha.</p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=WJe3b0UAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">behavioral economist who researches discrimination in labor markets</a>. In a <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4490163">study based on a hiring experiment</a> I conducted with another economist, <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=vyGCfDoAAAAJ">Rulof Burger</a>, we found that participants systematically discriminated against job candidates with names they associated with Black people, especially when put under time pressure. We also found that white people who oppose affirmative action discriminated more than other people against job candidates with distinctly Black names, whether or not they had to make rushed decisions.</p>
<h2>Detecting racial biases</h2>
<p>To conduct this study, we recruited 1,500 people from all 50 U.S. states in 2022 to participate in an online experiment on <a href="https://prolific.com">Prolific</a>, a survey platform. The group was nationally representative in terms of race and ethnicity, age and gender.</p>
<p>We first collected data on their beliefs about the race and ethnicity, education, productivity and personality traits of people with six names picked from a pool of 2,400 workers whom we hired in an early stage of our experiment for a transcription task. Data from these individual responses made it possible for us to categorize how they perceived the candidates.</p>
<p>We found that the names of workers perceived as Black, such as Shanice or Terell, were more likely to elicit negative presumptions, such as being less educated, productive, trustworthy and reliable, than people with either white-sounding names, such as Melanie or Adam, or racially ambiguous names, such as Krystal or Jackson.</p>
<p>We were specifically studying discrimination against Black people, so we did not include names in this experiment that are frequently associated with Hispanics or Asians. </p>
<p>Participants were next presented with pairs of names and were told they could earn money for selecting the worker who was more productive in the transcription task. The chance that they would choose job candidates they perceived to be white because of their names was almost twice as high than if they thought the candidates to be Black. This tendency to discriminate against people with Black-sounding names was greatest among men, people over 55, whites and conservatives.</p>
<p>Educational attainment, the level of racial diversity in the participants’ ZIP codes or whether they had personally hired anyone before didn’t influence their apparent biases. </p>
<p><iframe id="cju7c" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/cju7c/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Rushing can cause more discriminatory behavior</h2>
<p>Most real-world hiring managers spend <a href="https://careers.workopolis.com/advice/employers-view-resumes-for-fewer-than-11-seconds">less than 10 seconds</a> reviewing each resume during the initial screening stage. To keep up that swift pace, they may resort to using mental shortcuts – including racial stereotypes – to assess job applications.</p>
<p>We found that requiring the study participants to select a worker within only 2 seconds led them to be 25% more likely to discriminate against candidates with names they perceived as Black-sounding. Similar patterns of biased decision-making under time pressure have been documented in the context of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.6.1006">police shootings</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0022146512445807">medical decisions</a>.</p>
<p>However, making decisions more slowly is not a panacea. </p>
<p>We found that the most important factor for whether more deliberate decisions reduce discrimination was a participant’s view on <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/affirmative_action">affirmative action</a> – the consideration of race in a workforce or student body to ensure that their share of people of color is roughly proportionate to the general public or a local community. </p>
<p>White participants who opposed affirmative action were more than twice as likely to select an applicant with a white-sounding name compared with applicants perceived as Black – whether or not they had to make the simulated hiring decision in a hurry.</p>
<p>By contrast, giving white participants who favor affirmative action unlimited time to choose a name from the hiring list reduced discrimination against the job candidates with names they perceived as Black-sounding by almost half. The data showed that this decline had to do with people basing their decision more on their perceptions of a worker’s performance, rather than relying on mental shortcuts based on their perceived race.</p>
<p>We assessed the participants’ views on affirmative action by doing a survey at the end of this experiment.</p>
<h2>Discrimination hasn’t gone away</h2>
<p>A study published in 2021 <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w29053">suggested that hiring discrimination</a> based on Black-souding names had declined, although discriminatory practices remained high in some customer-facing lines of work, such as auto sales or retail. </p>
<p>Other research has suggested that once people learn more about someone, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/722093">discriminatory influence that a name might have</a> begins to fade. Yet, other studies have indicated that racial biases can make the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/pandp.20231114">interactions needed for this learning process less likely</a>. For example, racial biases may lead employers to refrain from interviewing – or hiring – a job candidate of color in the first place.</p>
<p>There is ample evidence that people of color face discrimination in many important domains beyond employment, including finding <a href="https://doi.org/10.1257/app.20160213">housing</a> or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rfs/hhac029">obtaining loans</a>.</p>
<p>Our results suggest that slowing down the initial assessment of applicants can be a first step toward reducing this type of discrimination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208423/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Abel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People who object to affirmative action were more likely to discriminate against job candidates with Black-sounding names than those who supported it, whether or not they had to rush.Martin Abel, Assistant Professor of Economics, Bowdoin CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2079662023-07-25T11:54:56Z2023-07-25T11:54:56ZAI can reinforce discrimination — but used correctly it could make hiring more inclusive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/538291/original/file-20230719-29-oobdly.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C5708%2C3811&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/business-career-placement-concept-image-back-1110306626">Shift Drive / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Hiring is normally featured as a prime example for algorithmic bias. This is where a tendency to favour some groups over others becomes accidentally fixed in an AI system designed to perform a specific task.</p>
<p>There are <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/957259/Review_into_bias_in_algorithmic_decision-making.pdf">countless stories</a> about this. Perhaps the best known example is when <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G">Amazon</a> tried to use AI in recruitment. In this case, CVs were used as the data to train, or improve, this AI. </p>
<p>Since most of the CVs were from men, the AI learned to filter out anything associated with women, such as being the president of the women’s chess club or a graduate from a women’s college. Needless to say that Amazon did not end up using the system more widely.</p>
<p>Similarly, the practice of filming <a href="https://web.br.de/interaktiv/ki-bewerbung/en/">video interviews</a> and then using an AI to analyse them for a candidate’s suitability is regularly criticised for its <a href="https://hbr.org/2022/01/where-automated-job-interviews-fall-short">potential to produce biased outcomes</a>. Yet proponents of AI in hiring suggest that it makes hiring processes fairer and more transparent by reducing <a href="https://www.koganpage.com/hr-learning-development/artificial-intelligence-for-hr-9781398604001">human biases</a>. This raises a question: is AI used in hiring inevitably reproducing bias, or could it actually make hiring fairer? </p>
<p>From a technical perspective, algorithmic bias refers to <a href="https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/subject-catalog/p/artificial-intelligence-a-modern-approach-global-edition/P200000005340">errors</a> that lead to unequal outcomes for different groups. However, rather than seeing algorithmic bias as an error, it can also be seen as a function of society. AI is often based on data drawn from the real world and these datasets reflect society. </p>
<p>For example, if women of colour are underrepresented in datasets, facial recognition software has a higher <a href="http://gendershades.org/overview.html">failure rate</a> when identifying women with darker skin tones. Similarly, for video interviews, there is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091317">concern</a> that tone of voice, accent or gender- and race-specific language patterns may influence assessments. </p>
<h2>Multiple biases</h2>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/algorithmic-bias-detection-and-mitigation-best-practices-and-policies-to-reduce-consumer-harms/">example</a> is that AI might learn, based on the data, that people called “Mark” do better than people named “Mary” and are thus ranked higher. Existing biases in society are reflected in and amplified through data.</p>
<p>Of course, data is not the only way in which AI-supported hiring might be biased. While designing AI draws on the expertise of a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12430">range</a> of people such as data scientists and experts in machine learning (where an AI system can be trained to improve at what it does), programmers, HR professionals, recruiters, industrial and organisational psychologists and hiring managers, it is often claimed that only <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/artificial-intelligence-researchers-gender-imbalance/">12%</a> of machine learning researchers are women. This raises concerns that the group of people designing these technologies is rather <a href="https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/publications/report-where-are-women-mapping-gender-job-gap-ai">narrow</a>. </p>
<p>Machine learning processes can be biased too. For instance, a company that uses data to help companies hire programmers found that a strong predictor for good coding skills was frequenting a particular <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/12/theyre-watching-you-at-work/354681/">Japanese cartoon</a> website. Hypothetically, if you wanted to hire programmers and use such data in machine learning, an AI might then suggest targeting individuals who studied programming at university, have “programmer” in their current job title and like <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0267364917303758">Japanese cartoons</a>. While the first two criteria are job requirements, the final one is not required to perform the job and and therefore should not be used. As such, the design of AI in hiring technologies requires careful consideration if we are aiming to create algorithms that support inclusion. </p>
<p>Impact assessments and <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/02/26/1020007/what-is-an-algorithm/">AI audits</a> that check systematically for discriminatory effects are crucial to ensure that AI in hiring is not perpetuating biases. The findings can then be used to tweak and <a href="https://psyarxiv.com/6gczw/">adapt</a> the technology to ensure that such biases do not reoccur. </p>
<h2>Careful consideration</h2>
<p><a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.06144.pdf">The providers</a> of hiring technologies have developed different tools such as auditing to check outcomes against protected characteristics or monitoring for discrimination by identifying masculine and feminine words. As such, audits can be a useful tool to evaluate if hiring technologies produce biased outcomes and to rectify that. </p>
<p>So is using AI in hiring leading inevitably to discrimination? In my recent <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1748-8583.12511">article</a>, I showed that if AI is used in a naive way, without implementing safeguards to avoid algorithmic bias, then the technology will repeat and amplify biases that exist in society and potentially also create new biases that did not exist before. </p>
<p>However, if implemented with a consideration for inclusion in the underlying data, in the designs adopted and in how decisions are taken, AI-supported hiring might in fact be a tool to create more inclusion. </p>
<p>AI-supported hiring does not mean that the final hiring decisions are or should be left to algorithms. Such technologies can be used to filter candidates, but the final hiring decisions rests with humans. Therefore, hiring can be improved if AI is implemented with attention to diversity and inclusion. But if the final hiring decision is made by a hiring <a href="https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/men-stepping-forward">manager</a> who is not aware of how to create an inclusive environment, bias can creep back in.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207966/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Kelan receives funding from a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship (MRF-2019-069) and a British Academy grant (SRG20\200195).</span></em></p>AI has been criticised for containing inherent biases, but if used in the right way it could make hiring fairer.Elisabeth Kelan, Professor of Leadership and Organisation, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2027072023-04-09T12:07:34Z2023-04-09T12:07:34ZThe power of language: How rhetoric awareness can combat hiring bias and discrimination<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518831/original/file-20230331-20-l516yl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C672%2C5103%2C3060&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Literary theory can help us understand why hiring managers prioritize some types of job experience over others.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>I first realized the usefulness of literary theory to the issue of hiring discrimination when I came across an article about a permanent resident struggling to find employment in architecture, her field of expertise, in Canada.</p>
<p>Employment counsellors from a government-funded newcomer program suggested the resident should <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/first-person-degree-was-worthless-in-canada-1.6772923">shave foreign experience off her resume</a> so she wouldn’t appear overqualified to recruiters.</p>
<p>Despite <a href="https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-removing-%22canadian-experience%22-barrier">policy</a> and <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/en/statement/1001242/ontario-passes-the-working-for-workers-act">labour law changes</a>, Canadian-specific work experience is still a barrier for many newcomers struggling to find employment in Canada. Beyond finding a job in the first place, there is also an <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2021004/article/00004-eng.htm">increasing wage gap between Canadians and immigrants</a> with the same level of education and work experience.</p>
<p>While many regard these issues as a matter of social policy, we are also dealing with a cultural, aesthetic problem. As a researcher in comparative literature, I believe literary theory can offer unique insight into the hiring process. </p>
<p>In particular, literary theory can help us understand how managers actually <em>read</em> resumes and why they prioritize certain types of experience over others. Understanding forms of unconscious bias can help us understand current hiring prejudices and, ideally, help us move past and overcome them.</p>
<h2>Relying on rhetorical devices</h2>
<p>The act of evaluating resumes is a reading exercise, and as such, it is bound to the conventions of literary genres. Literary theory can help us understand, for example, why hiring managers often succumb to a form of <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/insights-and-advice/blog/post/actively-addressing-unconscious-bias-in-recruiting">unconscious bias known as affinity bias</a> by seeking out familiarity in resumes.</p>
<p>Two types of rhetorical devices — <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/4888/the-case-for-god-by-karen-armstrong/9780307397447">logos and mythos</a> — are especially useful for understanding the resume reviewing process. </p>
<p>Mythos relies on external authority figures to provide knowledge, while logos requires the reader to process the information by themselves. The act of name-dropping is an example of mythos, while academic jargon is an example of logos. </p>
<p>A headline reading “<a href="https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2022/06/09/canadas-trump-is-politer-than-the-real-thing">Canada’s Trump</a>” about a Conservative Party candidate (mythos) is much easier to grasp than an academic paper explaining how <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/43298397">Conservative politicians have implemented “brand repositioning” strategies</a> (logos) in a way similar to Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Mythos serves as a shortcut: what we already know helps us understand what we don’t know. Evaluating a resume is meant to be an exercise in thinking about a candidate and yet resumes listing well-known companies — Apple, BMW, Colgate — are meant to be read quickly, without much thought. </p>
<p>Forbes <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecenizalevine/2015/09/12/five-items-on-your-resume-recruiters-notice-first/">recommends placing company names first</a> in a resume, revealing that mythos, or familiarity, is valued by hiring managers.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7j1ApF6agCU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This Google advertisement chronicles a newcomer’s difficulty in finding a job with their prior experience.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Google’s recent advertisement promoting its work certifications similarly show that immigrants need recognizable, familiar experience — not necessarily local. </p>
<p>Yet <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Technology-growth-inequality_final.pdf">global disparities in technological resources</a> mean not all companies can be verified as trustworthy names. In cases like this, what happens to resumes that don’t have experience that can be pulled up online? The short answer is they may be deemed unverifiable or untrustworthy.</p>
<h2>Hiring prejudice is nothing new</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/diversity-inclusion-equality-intersectionality/">barriers that certain groups of people</a> — including women, people of colour, queer and trans folks, and economically disadvantaged groups — face at work has historical precedents.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white photo of a woman sitting down" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518826/original/file-20230331-20-7hjbn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518826/original/file-20230331-20-7hjbn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518826/original/file-20230331-20-7hjbn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518826/original/file-20230331-20-7hjbn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=760&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518826/original/file-20230331-20-7hjbn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518826/original/file-20230331-20-7hjbn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518826/original/file-20230331-20-7hjbn8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=955&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photo of George Sand taken by French photographer Gaspard-Félix Tournachon in 1864.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Galerie Contemporaine)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the early 1840s, a <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24694550">young Marx was reading French writer George Sand</a>, a rare female voice in the literary profession and an easy target of sexism. </p>
<p>Her 1841 socialist novel, <em>Le Compagnon du tour de France</em>, parodied employers who rejected bohemian young men with fragmented work experience.</p>
<p>The novel told the story about a clash between traditional employers and their values, and a new class of nomadic young workers that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202257.003.0002">emerged during that decade’s rural exodus</a>.</p>
<p>One employer, Mr. Huguenin, is only interested in hiring familiar young men. In one scene, <a href="https://archive.org/details/journeymanjoiner0000sand/page/40/mode/2up">he asks a headhunter</a>: “You must have companions of the Tour of France, children of the Temple, sorcerers, libertines, the off-scourings of the highways?”</p>
<p>Like newcomers to Canada, Sand’s nomadic workers faced prejudice because they lacked social history, not employment history. At a time when technological progress had <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/JINH_a_00205">not yet fostered a cohesive national identity in France</a>, prejudice against workers in the 1840s had to do with their unfamiliar origins within, not outside, France. </p>
<p>Do we share Mr. Huguenin’s fears when we expect Canadian experience from newcomers? Could the same type of prejudice be threatening Canadians?</p>
<h2>Trust is the solution</h2>
<p>The fact that work experience must be recognized or certified is symptomatic of a larger crisis in trust — a crisis that has been <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4187181">compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic</a>. We have not come a long way from Sand’s time: her contemporaries may have sometimes believed in “sorcerers, libertines, the off-scourings of the highways,” but we still believe people can trick us.</p>
<p>By using literary theory to understand how rhetorical strategies like mythos and logos can shape the hiring process, we can gain insight into why some types of discrimination still persist — and how we can overcome them.</p>
<p>The solution to the trust crisis and hiring discrimination is slowing down and taking the time to truly understand an applicant’s resume. Practically speaking, employers should use unfamiliar work experiences as an invitation to poke further and discover a new culture or perspective. It is only superficially that work experiences from other countries may be seen as nontransferable to Canada. </p>
<p>Recently, we have been boasting about how the Canadian dream is <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/immigration-booming-population-and-global-influence-is-this-the-heroic-canadian-dream-1.5693991">overtaking its American counterpart</a>. But we should not imitate our neighbour to the south: the construction of any national myth is bound to be exclusionary.</p>
<p>Instead, what we need is a new myth, according to which all work experiences are relevant and valid experiences. No one should have to toil and labour for years before meriting trust. If employers considered resumes a few minutes longer and did their research thoroughly, we could genuinely break experience-related barriers into the workforce.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202707/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rayyan Dabbous does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Understanding how hiring managers evaluate candidates can help us understand current hiring prejudices and, hopefully, help us overcome them.Rayyan Dabbous, PhD student, Centre for Comparative Literature, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952982022-12-02T16:32:59Z2022-12-02T16:32:59ZWhy you could have ‘face-ism’ – an extreme tendency to judge people based on their facial features<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497982/original/file-20221129-24-6991vn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C8%2C5486%2C3638&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We all make judgments based on first impressions but some people take it to extremes</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/hmm-let-me-think-studio-shot-604726298">Cast Of Thousands/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You’ve finally got an interview for your dream job. Dozens of applications, dozens of rejection letters – but now you’ve got a shot at the job you really wanted. In you go. Maybe you shake hands with the person who will decide your future, pour a glass of water to steady your nerves. </p>
<p>But what you don’t know is that none of this matters. The second your interviewer set eyes on you, they decided you looked so incompetent and untrustworthy that you would never get this job. Because unfortunately, they are one of a subset of people who new research shows have a disposition to judge extreme personality traits from just a quick view of a person’s face.</p>
<p>Look at the two faces below. Would you hire these people? Who looks more intelligent? Would you trust either person to watch your laptop in a cafe while you pop out to take a call?</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A male face and a female face" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498694/original/file-20221202-24-fkdmuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498694/original/file-20221202-24-fkdmuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498694/original/file-20221202-24-fkdmuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498694/original/file-20221202-24-fkdmuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498694/original/file-20221202-24-fkdmuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498694/original/file-20221202-24-fkdmuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/498694/original/file-20221202-24-fkdmuf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What do you think these people would be like in person?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://figshare.com/articles/figure/Young_adult_composite_faces/4055130/1">Lisa DeBruine/figshare</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These <a href="https://figshare.com/articles/figure/Young_adult_composite_faces/4055130/1">images</a> were created by psychologist Lisa DeBruine and colleagues. In fact they are composite images, with each one having been created by combining four different faces. </p>
<p>Even though these faces aren’t real, you may still have made a snap verdict about each composite person’s competence based on their facial expression and structure. We do this all the time. Even though the people in the images don’t exist, we still have projected traits onto them. Making quick judgments about how much we should trust someone, how dominant they are likely to be, or how intelligent they are can be useful estimates of personality. </p>
<p>But this can also, unfortunately, lead to stereotyping – for example, thinking that people with a particular physical characteristic must all be untrustworthy.</p>
<h2>Harsh judgments</h2>
<p><a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.220172">Recent work</a> from researchers in Japan suggests something more worrying; that some of us have a disposition to draw drastic conclusions about the traits and personalities of others based solely on facial appearance.</p>
<p>In a series of online studies with more than 300 participants, Atsunobu Suzuki and colleagues found what they call “face-based trait inferences” (FBTIs). Basically, subjects made a series of personality judgments having taken a brief look at someone’s face. While everyone makes FBTIs to some degree, they found that some people only make <em>extreme</em> judgments (both positive and negative). This held even when the age, sex and ethnicity of participants were controlled for.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Doubtful HR manager talking to an applicant at job interview" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497981/original/file-20221129-19-orst4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497981/original/file-20221129-19-orst4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497981/original/file-20221129-19-orst4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497981/original/file-20221129-19-orst4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497981/original/file-20221129-19-orst4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497981/original/file-20221129-19-orst4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/497981/original/file-20221129-19-orst4k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Let’s hope for her sake he doesn’t have face-ism.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/doubtful-unconvinced-african-american-hr-manager-1368244226">fizkes/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Imagine seeing a certain type of face, perhaps with hard eyes and masculine features, and immediately getting the impression the person is <a href="https://www.cell.com/trends/cognitive-sciences/fulltext/S1364-6613(08)00235-0?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1364661308002350%3Fshowall%3Dtrue">extremely untrustworthy</a>. Or that someone with more feminine features and larger eyes is <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1110589?casa_token=OsQdYrgCde8AAAAA%3Awzf-CBS2CAGiCxiq4MO0GOrjix5bh4-VRTR3TbnO9Z1qN7m7FHZmnOvxiidVj3An5_kYhKibpet_fNs">incompetent</a>. As Suzuki and colleagues say, this is problematic indeed.</p>
<h2>Face up to the problem</h2>
<p>We already know unconscious bias is rife in decision-making about new hires. A 2018 study sent separate versions of almost identical CVs to apply for 50 different jobs. The only difference was the name on the CV: Adam Smith on one and Ravindra Thalwal on the other. Ravindra <a href="https://employernews.co.uk/employment/study-reveals-discrimination-as-cvs-with-non-british-names-dont-result-in-interviews-except-in-tech-sector/">received about half of the responses</a> compared with his more traditionally British sounding doppelgänger.</p>
<p>One of the leading figures in first impression research, Alexander Todorov, tells us these snap judgments are predictable but usually <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0956797614532474">inaccurate</a>. And we also know that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0963721419835206?casa_token=qH0q5oGS87sAAAAA%3AdtjldZZY7dVnzD-vGF10c-CHKAXqC9ZlzlDF-qf8bB2OEGDyyPuNPzEzsPxQLt_5wFKv5k4IM5Gwpg&journalCode=cdpa">first impressions</a> are usually hard to shake. So this could mean the wrong people are frequently being hired for jobs. </p>
<p>The thing with unconscious bias is you don’t realise you’re doing it most of the time. It’s one of the reasons some companies insist on unconscious bias training (although some people still <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-54282685">refuse to do it</a>). Unconscious bias training is not some fix-all remedy for discrimination, but even short interventions have been <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1816076116">shown to change people’s attitudes</a>. </p>
<p>You can design unconscious bias training for prejuduices against other physical characteristics such as race, gender and weight. But face-ism seems to be a stereotype that crosses ethnicities, the sexes and physical appearance. </p>
<p>One solution could be to make people aware that they exhibit extreme FBTIs by taking a test similar to the Suzuki experiment. Research <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxge0000179">has shown</a> that being made aware of your biases can lead to a change of mindset in the short term, but people need extra interventions periodically to make any real behaviour change last.</p>
<p>Maybe just making someone aware that they make extreme personality judgments based on facial appearance will be enough to pull the unconscious bias into the conscious. We’re certainly going to have to try; otherwise you might yourself be a victim of face-ism in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paddy Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research shows some people make extreme personality judgments based solely on facial appearancePaddy Ross, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1823892022-05-31T15:06:17Z2022-05-31T15:06:17ZDiscrimination: Swedish study shows job applicants with foreign names receive far fewer responses<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/what-the-world-can-learn-about-equality-from-the-nordic-model-99797">Sweden</a> is often lauded for <a href="https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/view/3844">its</a> <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0001699316631024">gender equality</a>. The gender gap in unpaid (house)work is <a href="https://eige.europa.eu/publications/gender-equality-index-2017-measuring-gender-equality-european-union-2005-2015-report">narrow</a>. Wide access to affordable, state-subsidised <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-britain-can-learn-from-scandinavia-when-it-comes-to-childcare-68459">daycare</a>, together with the right for parents of young children to work part time, means that women’s participation in the labour market is relatively <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/oecd-employment-outlook-2017_empl_outlook-2017-en">high</a>. And parental leave policies are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0958928712440201">generous</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, among the 38 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the employment gap between people born in Sweden and immigrants is among the <a href="https://www.oecd.org/migration/swedish-migrant-intergation-system.pdf">widest</a>. This impacts a large proportion of the Swedish population. <a href="https://www.scb.se/en/finding-statistics/statistics-by-subject-area/population/population-composition/population-statistics/pong/tables-and-graphs/yearly-statistics--the-whole-country/population-in-sweden-by-countryregion-of-birth-citizenship-and-swedishforeign-background-31-december-2021/">One in five</a> people in Sweden were born abroad and an even larger share of Swedes have at least one foreign-born parent. </p>
<p>To understand this dichotomy, my colleagues and I looked at how discrimination in the Swedish labour market varies by gender, ethnicity and parenthood. I found that having a name deemed to sound foreign results in applicants receiving far fewer responses than people with typically Swedish-sounding names. </p>
<h2>Correspondance audit of the labour market</h2>
<p>To study hiring discrimination, you can ask workers about their personal, and subjective, experiences. However, using only survey or register data to adequately measure discrimination across the labour market is difficult, if not impossible. </p>
<p>An alternative method, adopted by both by sociologists and economists, is what is called a <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71153-9_1">correspondence audit</a>. Nowadays this mostly involves researchers submitting written applications from fictitious candidates to real advertised job openings. The researchers then record the responses received from employers. </p>
<p>For our study, we submitted 5,641 applications in response to job ads on the Swedish Employment Agency’s website, between 2013 and 2020. In total, our applications covered up to 20 occupations. These varied in terms of qualification levels required, industry and sector, as well as gender spread and ethnic diversity. </p>
<p>We used common Swedish names to signal the majority ethnicity (white Swedish). And we used common Slavic and Arabic names as foreign-sounding names – these represent some of the largest foreign-born population groups, and visible ethnic minorities, in Sweden.</p>
<p>I found that applicants with foreign names receive substantially <a href="https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A1636316&dswid=-647">fewer positive responses</a> to their job applications than those with typically Swedish names. The difference in the callback rates between applicants with Swedish and foreign-sounding names is almost 15 percentage points. In other words, if someone with a Swedish-sounding name sent out 10 applications, someone with a foreign-sounding name would have to send out 15 to expect the same number of callbacks. </p>
<p>What’s more, among applicants with foreign names, we found that men are contacted less often by employers than women. </p>
<p>In a smaller study on a subsample of about 2,100 applications, we found <a href="https://academic.oup.com/esr/article/33/3/337/3852477?login=true">no evidence</a> of systematic discrimination based on gender or parenthood status.</p>
<h2>Discrimination across Europe</h2>
<p>These results broadly echo recent research from Europe. While <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71153-9_3">previous findings</a> on gender discrimination are somewhat diverse – depending on the country and occupational context – many <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.5018/economics-ejournal.ja.2015-25/html">recent</a> <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sp/article/28/4/921/6352264?login=true">European</a> <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/245913">studies</a> do <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09585192.2011.540160">not</a> show discrimination against women in general. In fact, there is some <a href="https://www.econstor.eu/handle/10419/245913">evidence</a> of hiring discrimination in favour of women. </p>
<p><a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-71153-9_3">Discrimination</a> against job applicants with foreign-sounding names, on the other hand, is <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0190272520902994">well documented</a>. There are also <a href="https://academic.oup.com/esr/article/34/4/402/5047111?login=true">several</a><a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/imre.12170">studies</a>, from the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland), that <a href="https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/164589/433_3711_3_PB.pdf?sequence=1">show</a> that men with foreign-sounding names face <a href="https://academic.oup.com/esr/article/34/4/402/5047111?login=true">greater hiring discrimination</a> than women. </p>
<p>The issue is complex. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sf/article/92/3/957/2235852?login=true">Other European studies</a> have variously not found ethnic discrimination to differ by gender, or have shown discrimination patterns to vary – depending on the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/esr/article/30/3/399/2763433?login=true">gender composition</a> of the occupation and the <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0190272520902994">backgrounds</a> (ethnic or racial) of the applicants. </p>
<p>We focused on the early stage of the formal hiring process, but not final hiring decisions. Discrimination can, of course, also take place at every other phase, be that in terms of who gets promotions, training opportunities; who is paid what wages and who is let go. </p>
<p>These findings imply that discrimination against job applicants with foreign-sounding names contributes to ethnic inequality in Sweden, particularly for men. If men with names deemed to be foreign receive fewer responses to job applications, they are probably less likely than men with names deemed Swedish to end up in an interview and to be hired.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182389/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The research has received funding from the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte).</span></em></p>A significant employment gap exists between Swedish-born and immigrant job seekers.Anni Erlandsson, Post-doctoral Researcher in Sociology, Stockholm UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1428862020-09-28T12:23:49Z2020-09-28T12:23:49ZHow even a casual brush with the law can permanently mar a young man’s life – especially if he’s Black<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/359890/original/file-20200924-14-1qemu6d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=176%2C142%2C5431%2C3589&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even a minor arrest and no conviction can be devastating. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Doug Berry/Photodisc via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/6/1/21276957/george-floyd-protests-coronavirus-police-brutality-racism">George Floyd’s death</a> highlighted how even a minor alleged infraction – in his case, over a fake $20 bill – can lead to a fatal interaction with law enforcement. </p>
<p>As a result, a coalition of advocacy organizations, criminal justice reform advocates and everyday citizens <a href="https://www.vox.com/21312191/police-reform-defunding-abolition-black-lives-matter-protests">have called for cities</a> to take a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/28/us/police-out-of-schools-movement/index.html">wide range of actions</a> to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/08/13/at-least-13-cities-are-defunding-their-police-departments/#71497cd629e3">reduce the power and authority</a> of local police departments. </p>
<p>But loss of life isn’t the only potential consequence of a brush with the law. Even a single arrest, without conviction, can be devastating to the rest of a young man’s life – especially if he’s Black – particularly in terms of employment and earnings. And African American men are much more likely to get arrested than their white counterparts. </p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Cb-z1MwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">My own recent research</a> has been exploring what employers can do to help overcome the barriers associated with arrests and the stigma of incarceration. </p>
<h2>Devastating consequences</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Americans-with-Criminal-Records-Poverty-and-Opportunity-Profile.pdf">One in three Americans</a> has been arrested by the age of 23, but the stats get a lot worse if you are a Black man. </p>
<p>A young African American <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-019-00618-7">is seven times more likely</a> to get arrested than a white peer. By the time they are 23, Black men are at a <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1007/s10560-019-00618-7">49% risk of getting arrested</a> and six times more likely to be incarcerated than white men. As of 2010, <a href="https://www.sentencingproject.org/news/5593/">one-third of African American adult males</a> had a felony conviction on their records, compared with 8% of all U.S. adults.</p>
<p>While the data on the system’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/black-americans-are-bearing-the-brunt-of-coronavirus-recession-this-should-come-as-no-surprise-137587">disproportionate impact</a> on Black men are bad enough, it doesn’t end there. Any interaction with the justice system, even for a misdemeanor or arrest without conviction, can have devastating consequences for the individual. </p>
<p>More than 60% of formerly incarcerated individuals <a href="https://www.nelp.org/publication/reentry-and-employment-for-the-formerly-incarcerated-and-the-role-of-american-trades-unions/">remain unemployed one year after being released</a>, and those who do find jobs make 40% less in pay annually.</p>
<p>Research shows that a criminal record of any sort – including arrest without conviction – <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1177/0002716208330793">reduced the likelihood of a job offer by almost 50%</a>. The impact is substantially larger for Black job applicants. </p>
<p>And while Black men are affected most by these problems, it’s a national problem that affects many young men and women across the United States. More than <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/07/29/amid-coronavirus-outbreak-nearly-three-in-ten-young-people-are-neither-working-nor-in-school/">10 million young adults</a> age 16-24 were neither working nor in school in June. While it’s unclear how many of them are “disconnected” as a result of an arrest record – the pandemic <a href="https://www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/young-lockdown-generation-suffering-severe-job-losses-covid-19">has certainly put many of them out of work</a> – research <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4192649/">suggests an arrest</a> is <a href="http://www.justicepolicy.org/news/12816">a key factor</a>. </p>
<p>The effect on the U.S. economy as a whole is significant, with the underemployment of formerly incarcerated individuals <a href="https://cepr.net/images/stories/reports/employment-prisoners-felonies-2016-06.pdf">leading to a loss</a> of US$78 billion to $87 billion in gross domestic product in 2014.</p>
<h2>Finding solutions</h2>
<p>Local and state agencies <a href="https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-is-a-ban-the-box-law.html">have passed legislation</a> designed to prevent hiring practices that discriminate against individuals with criminal records. </p>
<p>These efforts include “<a href="https://www.nelp.org/publication/ban-the-box-fair-chance-hiring-state-and-local-guide/">ban the box</a>,” which removes the question asking about a criminal record from job applications, and other <a href="https://www.goodhire.com/blog/understanding-the-fair-chance-act-and-fair-hiring-laws/">“fair chance” hiring</a> policies aimed at preventing employers from explicitly asking about an applicant’s criminal history.</p>
<p><iframe id="GOrii" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/GOrii/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>However, <a href="https://www.nelp.org/blog/ban-the-box-statistical-discrimination-studies-draw-the-wrong-conclusions/">research has shown</a> that these policies are not a panacea and <a href="https://psmag.com/social-justice/how-ban-the-box-can-lead-to-even-more-racial-discrimination-by-employers">can even lead to more</a> discriminatory and racist hiring practices as some employers switched to making certain assumptions based on racially distinctive names.</p>
<p>My team of researchers has been working with <a href="https://www.leadersup.org/about-us">LeadersUp</a>, a nonprofit that targets high youth unemployment in America, to identify more inclusive hiring practices for young adults who have interacted with the criminal justice system, including everything from a singular arrest to incarceration for felony offenses.</p>
<p>Our findings suggest that while there is strong support for the concept of fair chance hiring among employers, practices that would lead to more of these people being hired have not yet been widely adopted. </p>
<p>According to a soon-to-be-published survey of 39 employers so far, almost half reported trying to distinguish between an applicant’s arrest and an actual conviction, while 44% offered applicants an opportunity to explain a conviction.</p>
<p>One problem we encountered was that despite strong interest in proposing changes, human resources employees didn’t always feel they have enough authority to implement new initiatives regarding fair chance hiring. Additionally, when background checks are required, the burden often falls on the job applicant to take the initiative to review these checks for accuracy or to report employers who not are abiding by local hiring laws. </p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Hiring opportunities for young people who have an encounter with the justice system are further limited by compounding issues such as stigma, skill matching and a lack of education about what it means.</p>
<p>Employers play an important role in expanding inclusive hiring practices for individuals who have had involvement with the criminal justice system. But I believe a key first step toward more equitable hiring practices should be to expunge the criminal records of young adults who have been arrested but not convicted or have committed misdemeanor crimes. That will give more of them a clean slate to build their lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/142886/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gary Painter receives funding from the Workforce Accelerator Fund (WAF 7.0) for the research referenced in this piece</span></em></p>Whether or not someone is eventually convicted, an arrest alone is enough to significantly impair a Black man’s job and earning prospects.Gary Painter, Professor of Public Policy, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1434082020-08-14T12:17:07Z2020-08-14T12:17:07ZDiversity pledges alone won’t change corporate workplaces – here’s what will<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/352775/original/file-20200813-14-1oj7rc4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C172%2C5000%2C2694&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Words alone won't make corporate America more diverse. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-words-all-black-lives-matter-are-seen-painted-on-news-photo/1219964763">Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dozen of companies, from <a href="https://www.apple.com/speaking-up-on-racism/">Apple</a> to <a href="https://www.zappos.com/e/black-lives-matter">Zappos</a>, have reacted to George Floyd’s killing and the protests that followed by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/companies-racism-george-floyd-protests.html">pledging to make their workforces more diverse</a>. </p>
<p>While commendable, to me it feels a bit like deja vu. Back in 2014, a host of tech companies <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2015/06/19/technology/tech-diversity-roundup/index.html">made similar commitments</a> to diversify their ranks. Their latest reports – which they release annually – show <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/17/18678541/women-tech-photoshop-diversity">they’ve made little progress</a>.</p>
<p>Why have their efforts largely failed? Were they just empty promises? </p>
<p>As a gender diversity scholar, I explored these questions in <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3344751">my recent paper published</a> in the Stanford Technology Law Review. The problem is not a lack of commitment but what social scientists call “unconscious bias.”</p>
<h2>Big tech, little progress</h2>
<p>Today’s efforts to promote diversity are certainly more specific than the tech industry’s vague promises in 2014. </p>
<p>In 2020, sports apparel maker Adidas <a href="https://www.adidas-group.com/en/media/news-archive/press-releases/2020/message-adidas-board-creating-lasting-change-now/">pledged</a> to fill at least 30% of all open positions with Black or Latino candidates. Cosmetics company Estée Lauder <a href="https://www.elcompanies.com/en/news-and-media/newsroom/company-features/2020/elc-commits-to-racial-equity">promised</a> to make sure the share of Black people it employs mirrors their percentage of the U.S. population within five years. And Facebook <a href="https://about.fb.com/news/2020/06/supporting-black-and-diverse-communities/">vowed to double</a> its number of Black and Latino employees within three years. </p>
<p>Companies have also committed at least <a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/here-are-tech-companies-plans-for-increasing-diversity-amid-protests-over-racial-inequality-2020-06-25">US$1 billion</a> in money and resources to fight the broader societal scourge of racism and support Black Americans and people of color more broadly. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, if past experience is any indication, good intentions and public pledges will not be enough to tackle the problem of the underrepresentation of women and people of color in most companies.</p>
<p>In 2014, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-diversity-numbers-2014-5">Google</a>, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2014/6/25/5843300/facebook-releases-first-diversity-report">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2014/8/12/5949453/no-surprise-apple-is-very-white-very-male">Apple</a> and other tech companies began publishing diversity reports after software engineer <a href="https://qz.com/work/1175679/software-engineer-tracy-chous-mission-to-diversify-silicon-valley/">Tracy Chao</a>, investor <a href="https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/ellen-pao-silicon-valley-sexism-reset-excerpt.html">Ellen Pao</a> and others <a href="https://projectinclude.org">called attention</a> to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/2/5/16972096/emily-chang-brotopia-book-bloomberg-technology-culture-silicon-valley-kara-swisher-decode-podcast">Silicon Valley’s white male-dominated, misogynistic culture</a>. The numbers weren’t pretty, and so one by one, they all made <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/five-years-tech-diversity-reports-little-progress/">public commitments to diversity</a> with promises of money, partnerships, training and mentorship programs. </p>
<p>Yet, half a decade later, their latest reports reveal, in embarrassing detail, <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/17/18678541/women-tech-photoshop-diversity">how little things have changed</a>, especially for underrepresented minorities. For example, at Apple, the <a href="https://www.apple.com/diversity/">share of women in tech jobs rose</a> from 20% in 2014 to 23% in 2018, while the percentage of Black workers in those roles remained flat at 6%. <a href="https://kstatic.googleusercontent.com/files/25badfc6b6d1b33f3b87372ff7545d79261520d821e6ee9a82c4ab2de42a01216be2156bc5a60ae3337ffe7176d90b8b2b3000891ac6e516a650ecebf0e3f866">Google managed to increase the share</a> of women in such jobs to 24% in 2020 from 17% in 2014, yet only 2.4% of these tech roles are filled by Black workers, up from 1.5% in 2014. Even companies that <a href="https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/inclusion-and-diversity-report-december-2019.html">have made more progress</a>, such as Twitter, still have far to go to achieve meaningful representation. </p>
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<p>I believe one of the reasons for the lack of progress is that two of their main methods, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tech-companies-spend-big-money-on-bias-training-but-it-hasnt-improved-diversity-numbers-44411">diversity training</a> and mentoring, were flawed. Training can actually <a href="https://perma.cc/XD5D-XNS2">harm workplace relationships</a>, while mentoring <a href="https://wappp.hks.harvard.edu/files/wappp/files/social_incentives_for_gender_differences_in_the_propensity_to_initiate_negotiations-_sometimes_it_does_hurt_to_ask_0.pdf">places the burden</a> of changing the system on those disadvantaged by it and with the least influence over it.</p>
<p>More importantly, however, you can not solve the problem of diversity – no matter how much money you throw at it – without a thorough understanding of its source: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/18/daniel-kahneman-books-interview">faulty human decision-making</a>. </p>
<h2>A problem of bias</h2>
<p>My research, which relies on the <a href="https://scholar.princeton.edu/kahneman/publications-0">behavioral work</a> of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman, explains that because humans are unaware of their unconscious biases, most underestimate their impact on the decisions they make. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175">People tend to believe</a> they make hiring or other business decisions based on <a href="https://perma.cc/8EDF-6WDX">facts or merit alone</a>, despite loads of evidence showing that decisions tend to be <a href="https://perma.cc/EYQ5-W3DV">subjective</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-daniel-kahneman-economics-bias-noise-167275de691f">inconsistent</a> and subject to mental shortcuts, known to psychologists as <a href="https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/%7Eschaller/Psyc590Readings/TverskyKahneman1974.pdf">heuristics</a>. </p>
<p>Male-dominated industries, such as <a href="https://www.insider.com/male-jobs-women-underrepresented-numbers-2019-8#television-video-and-motion-picture-camera-operators-and-editors-are-predominantly-male-with-women-making-up-214-of-the-field-7">tech, finance and engineering</a>, tend to keep hiring the same types of employees and promoting the same types of workers due to their preference for applicants who match the stereotype of who belongs in these roles – a phenomenon known as <a href="https://perma.cc/8WL2-WL2S">representative bias</a>. This perpetuates the status quo that keeps men in prime positions and prevents women and underrepresented minorities from gaining a foothold. </p>
<p>This problem is amplified by <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/70c9/3e5e38a8176590f69c0491fd63ab2a9e67c4.pdf">confirmation bias</a> and the <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/On-the-Psychology-of-Prediction.-Kahneman-Tversky/85978718f87a0299b6b3fbbc3e8c40210d21942b">validity illusion</a>, which lead us to be overconfident in our predictions and decisions – despite <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=kahneman+on+prediction&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart">ample research</a> demonstrating how poorly humans are at forecasting events. </p>
<p>By failing to make objective decisions in the hiring process, the system just repeats itself over and over.</p>
<h2>How AI can overcome bias</h2>
<p>Advances in artificial intelligence, however, offer a way to <a href="https://ideal.com/unconscious-bias/">overcome these biases</a> by making hiring decisions more objective and consistent. </p>
<p>One way is by anonymizing the interview process.</p>
<p>Studies have found that simply replacing female names with male names on resumes results in improving the odds of a woman being hired <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1211286109">by 61%</a>. AI could help ensure an applicant isn’t culled early in the vetting process due to gender or race in a number of ways. For example, code could be written that removes certain identifying features from resumes. Or a company could use <a href="https://perma.cc/JL3X-NYWE">neuroscience games</a> – which help match candidate skills and cognitive traits to the needs of jobs – as an unbiased gatekeeper. </p>
<p>Another roadblock is job descriptions, <a href="https://www.mya.com/blog/unconscious-bias-in-job-descriptions/">which can be worded</a> in a way that results in fewer applicants from diverse backgrounds. AI is able to identify and remove biased language before the ad is even posted.</p>
<p><a href="https://perma.cc/3XVC-4XY2">Some companies</a> have already made strides hiring women and underrepresented minorities this way. For example, <a href="https://www.unilever.com/brands/?category=408126">Unilever</a> has had fantastic success improving the diversity of its workforce by employing a number of AI technologies in the recruitment process, including using a <a href="https://perma.cc/QN6T-WZFZ">chatbot</a> to carry on automated “conversations” with applicants. Earlier this year, the maker of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and Vaseline jelly <a href="https://www.unilever.com/news/press-releases/2020/unilever-achieves-gender-balance-across-management-globally.html">said it achieved</a> perfect parity between women and men in management positions, up from 38% a decade earlier. </p>
<p>Accenture, <a href="https://www.refinitiv.com/en/media-center/press-releases/2019/september/refinitiv-announces-the-2019-d-and-i-index-top-100-most-diverse-and-inclusive-organizations-globally">which ranked number one</a> in 2019 among more than 7,000 companies around the world on an index of diversity and inclusion, utilizes AI in its <a href="https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/recruiting-strategy/2018/the-new-way-companies-are-evaluating-candidates-soft-skills-and-discovering-high-potential-talent">online assessments</a> of job applicants. <a href="https://www.accenture.com/us-en/about/inclusion-diversity/us-workforce">Women now make up</a> 38% of its U.S. workforce, up from 36% in 2015, while African Americans rose to 9.3% from 7.6%.</p>
<h2>Garbage in, garbage out</h2>
<p>Of course, AI is only as good as the data and design that go into it.</p>
<p>We know that <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2477899">biases</a> can be introduced in the choices programmers make when creating an algorithm, how information is labeled and even in the very data sets that AI relies upon. A <a href="http://proceedings.mlr.press/v81/buolamwini18a/buolamwini18a.pdf">2018 study</a> found that a poorly designed facial recognition algorithm had an error rate as high as 34% for identifying darker-skinned women, compared with 1% for light-skinned men.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Fortunately, bias in AI can be mitigated – and remedied when problems are discovered – through <a href="https://www.toptal.com/artificial-intelligence/mitigating-ai-bias">its responsible use</a>, which requires balanced and inclusive data sets, the ability to peer inside its “black box” and the recruitment of a diverse group of programmers to build these programs. Additionally, algorithmic outcomes can be <a href="https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2020/08/07/artificial-intelligence-in-hiring-problem-or-solution/">monitored</a> and audited for bias and accuracy.</p>
<p>But that really is the point. You can take the bias out of AI – but <a href="https://www.experfy.com/blog/don-t-fear-ai-fear-human-stupidity/">you can’t remove it from humans</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/143408/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kimberly A. Houser does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Recent anti-racism protests have spurred dozens of companies to vow to diversify their workforces, yet big tech’s efforts to do so since 2014 show promises aren’t enough to overcome the real problem.Kimberly A. Houser, Assistant Clinical Professor, Business and Tech Law, University of North TexasLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1222642019-10-17T02:45:58Z2019-10-17T02:45:58ZThe case for ‘inclusion riders’ in creative industries: what Australian discrimination law says about quotas<p>In March last year, Frances McDormand won the Academy Award for Best Actress. </p>
<p>In her acceptance speech, she drew attention to the female nominees in the room and left them with two final words: “inclusion rider”.</p>
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<p>Inclusion riders are contractual clauses that can be used by prominent stars like McDormand to demand quotas for greater employment of minority groups on- and off-screen. </p>
<p>Within weeks, <a href="https://www.harpersbazaar.com.au/celebrity/inclusion-rider-celebrities-brie-larson-matt-damon-15996">a long list of actors</a> including Brie Larson, Matt Damon and Michael B. Jordan had pledged to adopt an inclusion rider in future contracts. Last September, Warner Bros became the first major Hollywood studio to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/05/warner-bros-adopts-company-wide-inclusion-policy-to-boost-diversity">adopt a company-wide policy</a> to implement an inclusion rider practice. </p>
<p>But what do Australian discrimination laws say about hiring practices based on attributes such as gender, race or disability? </p>
<h2>Pressure to diversify</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/stacy_smith_the_data_behind_hollywood_s_sexism/details?language=en">Developed in the US by Dr Stacy Smith</a>, inclusion riders are designed to put pressure on film companies to diversify their hiring practices. They are particularly targeted at increasing diversity through supporting acting roles and positions among the crew.</p>
<p>An actor in a leading role could request a clause in their contract stipulating that Indigenous Australians must comprise at least 10% of the supporting cast in an Australian film, or 50% of the film crew must be women. </p>
<p>Through this, power imbalances in creative industries can begin to be rectified. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-oscars-inclusivity-riders-are-a-start-but-change-needs-to-come-from-the-ground-up-92946">The Oscars: inclusivity riders are a start but change needs to come from the ground up</a>
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<p>Women have the majority of dialogue in <a href="https://pudding.cool/2017/03/film-dialogue/?fbclid=IwAR1KrNqHDN5OhemYitur2YTr2LU5oL7mgbbbRmOwGJ1afWzNF2m2ig640Ww">just 22% of films</a>. <a href="https://annenberg.usc.edu/sites/default/files/2017/04/06/MDSCI_Inclusion%20_in_the_Directors_Chair.pdf">Just 4% of major film directors</a> are female. While 17% of the Australian population are of non-European background, only <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/getmedia/157b05b4-255a-47b4-bd8b-9f715555fb44/TV-Drama-Diversity.pdf">7% of characters in Australian television</a> are of non-European descent. Further, <a href="https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/getmedia/157b05b4-255a-47b4-bd8b-9f715555fb44/TV-Drama-Diversity.pdf">91% of Australian TV characters</a> with a disability are cast with non-disabled actors. </p>
<h2>Unclear legal implications</h2>
<p>Discrimination laws in Australia protect most attributes symmetrically. For instance, this means men and women are both protected from sex discrimination.</p>
<p>Consider a male actor not selected for a supporting role where the lead actor’s contract required 50% of the supporting cast be female. If the male actor would have been selected but for the inclusion rider, he could mount a discrimination case. </p>
<p>However, all four of the current federal discrimination law statutes (<a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/rda1975202/s8.html">race</a>, <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/sda1984209/s7d.html">sex</a>, <a href="http://www5.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/dda1992264/s45.html">disability</a> and <a href="http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au//legis/cth/consol_act/ada2004174/s33.html">age</a>) - and indeed the <a href="https://theconversation.com/religious-discrimination-bill-is-a-mess-that-risks-privileging-people-of-faith-above-all-others-122631">new draft religious discrimination bill</a> – contain a “special measures” provision. </p>
<p>These provisions permit otherwise unlawful discriminatory acts where they seek to further the opportunities of historically disadvantaged groups.</p>
<p>These laws also permit casting practices for particular roles on the basis of authenticity, through “genuine occupational requirement” provisions: a role can be written for a woman, or someone of Asian descent, and cast appropriately. The “genuine occupational requirement” provisions would not usually apply to inclusion riders, as riders target roles where these attributes are not “required” - such as supporting roles or off-screen roles.</p>
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<h2>Would inclusion riders be lawful?</h2>
<p>We recently <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3465273">published a paper</a> in the Media and Arts Law Review which examined the lawfulness of inclusion riders as “special measures”.</p>
<p>This is an especially difficult question because of the way these discrimination laws are drafted. Different policy reasons underpin each of the special measure provisions, such as “achieving substantive equality” (sex), “reducing a disadvantage” (age), and securing “adequate advancement” (race). </p>
<p>Inclusion riders that target groups across all four laws would therefore have to meet four different sets of requirements. </p>
<p>But the question essentially boils down to this: is the measure targeted at increasing opportunities for a disadvantaged group, and is it a reasonable and/or appropriate way of achieving this?</p>
<p>If a quota or measure is stricter, its rationale must be stronger. And the less represented a group is, the easier it is to make this rationale. </p>
<p>Our paper suggests inclusion riders are likely to meet this test and qualify as a special measure under all four laws. The groups targeted by inclusion riders are undoubtedly disadvantaged in the film industry.</p>
<p>When particular groups do achieve fair representation in creative industries, inclusion riders may then become unlawful. But this seems a long way off.</p>
<h2>The rest of the ride</h2>
<p>Despite inclusion riders likely being lawful under Australian discrimination laws, barriers to their implementation remain.</p>
<p>Producers may be concerned at the potential for discrimination claims and the consequential attention this could draw – even more so when measures must comply with four different federal laws and eight state and territory laws, which each provide different complex tests.</p>
<p>As such, we propose two reforms to encourage and empower actors and film companies to take up inclusion riders in Australia. </p>
<p>First, a new harmonised provision on special measures should be drafted. If each federal law contained the same special measures test this would provide certainty to producers seeking to implement inclusion riders. Though the harmonisation of all federal discrimination laws <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/discrimination-laws-go-back-to-the-drawing-board-20130320-2genj.html">failed back in 2012</a>, the harmonisation of a single provision should be more achievable.</p>
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<p>Second, companies should be able to certify inclusion riders as lawful special measures. </p>
<p>The Australian Human Rights Commission currently has <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/document/publication/AHRC_SDA_Special_Measures_Guidelines%202018.pdf">no power to approve</a> particular special measures. </p>
<p>Allowing the Commission to certify such measures would provide producers with the preemptive authority and confidence to implement special measures. It could create greater certainty on the lawfulness of quotas in other sectors, too.</p>
<h2>Inclusion riders aren’t the only answer</h2>
<p>While inclusion riders provide an important and effective step towards the goal of achieving greater diversity in creative industries, it is not the only step to be taken.</p>
<p>Producers must consider <em>how</em> diverse groups are represented so as to avoid reinforcing stereotypes. </p>
<p>Pay parity also requires significant work: an inclusion rider cannot achieve its aims if more women are employed but they are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/13/the-crowns-claire-foy-paid-less-than-male-co-star-producers-admit">paid vastly less</a> than male counterparts. </p>
<p>Stakeholders could also build on Screen Australia’s <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/women-making-strides-on-screen-but-still-a-long-way-to-go-behind-camera-20190820-p52j0l.html">Gender Matters program</a>, which is already reaping benefits.</p>
<p>As then-Sex Discrimination Commissioner Elizabeth Broderick noted in a <a href="https://www.humanrights.gov.au/about/news/speeches/there-merit-quotas-australian-context">speech ten years ago on gender equality and quotas</a>: “without a significant change in approaches the only thing we can expect is more of the same.”</p>
<p>If the response to McDormand’s speech is anything to go by, creative industries have the platform and opportunity to be leaders in this change.</p>
<p>Inclusion riders are a start: but more needs to be done to ensure we aren’t sitting here in another decade saying the same thing.</p>
<p><em>This article was co-authored with Monica Brierley-Hay (Associate, Federal Court of Australia)</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122264/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Liam Elphick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Inclusion riders can improve employment for women and minorities on film sets by calling for quotas. New research suggests this form of discrimination could be legal in Australia.Liam Elphick, Adjunct Research Fellow, Law School, The University of Western AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1118112019-03-29T10:44:37Z2019-03-29T10:44:37ZJessie Simmons: How a schoolteacher became an unsung hero of the civil rights movement<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261721/original/file-20190301-110110-1gxxe8e.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=20%2C11%2C410%2C386&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jessie Dean Gipson Simmons, shown top center about age 37, c. 1961
[Clockwise: daughter Angela, sons Obadiah Jerone, Jr. and Carl,
and husband Obadiah Jerone, Sr.; daughters Carolyn and Quendelyn are not pictured]</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Simmons family archives</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jessie Dean Gipson Simmons was full of optimism when she and her family moved from an apartment in a troubled area of Detroit to a new development in Inkster, Michigan in 1955.</p>
<p>With three children in tow, Jessie and her husband settled into a home on Colgate Street in a neighborhood known as “Brick City” – an idyllic enclave of single, working-class families with a shared community garden. </p>
<p>The plan was simple. Like many African Americans who left the South as part of the <a href="https://instintofemenino.org/book/454167311/download-the-promised-land-by-nicholas-lemann.pdf">Great Migration</a>, Jessie’s husband, Obadiah Sr., would find a stable factory job just outside of Detroit. Then Jessie would put to use the bachelor’s degree she had earned in upper elementary education from Grambling State University in the township of Taylor - just a few blocks from their new home.</p>
<p>But the plan went awry. Jessie first applied for a teaching position with the Taylor school district in April 1958, but was denied. The same thing happened in March 1959. And a third time in May 1959. The repeated denials may have set back Jessie’s plans, but they also set her up to fight an important battle for justice for black educators at a time when many were being pushed out of the teaching profession.</p>
<p>I interviewed Jessie’s family as part of my ongoing <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S2051-231720170000006002">research</a> into the history of black women teachers from the Reconstruction Era to the 21st century.</p>
<h2>Fighting back</h2>
<p>The battle began when Jessie filed a grievance with the Michigan Fair Employment Practices Commission, or MFEPC, on Sept. 1, 1959. Jessie’s grievance detailed her conversation with the superintendent Orville Jones in March 1958, in which he told her “there would be vacancies in 1959.”</p>
<p>In August 1958, the Taylor Township Board of Education – the body overseeing the school district where Jessie wanted to teach – took up the matter of employing Negro teachers at a board meeting. The reason the item was placed on the agenda? The Superintendent at the time, Orville Jones, “felt that any handicap” – he deemed race as a handicap – “be pointed out to the board.” </p>
<p>The chair of the school board, Mr. Randall, stated applications were “considered in the order of the dates they were received.” Since the Taylor school board was now on record regarding its hiring practices for teachers, Jessie used that statement in her grievance. </p>
<p>Jessie’s decision to file a grievance would be a costly one for her family. The couple had planned on two steady incomes. In 1959, now a mother of five children, Jessie took a job as a waitress and a cook in a cafe to make ends meet. Her job drew scorn from family members in Louisiana who knew she was severely underemployed. And though her children didn’t know it at the time, Jessie and her husband “gave up meals so the children could eat,” according to Jessie’s oldest son, Obidiah Jr. </p>
<p>In 1960 the MFEPC held a public hearing for the grievance filed by Jessie and Mary Ruth Ross - a second black teacher who was also denied employment by the Taylor board of education. According to the Detroit Courier, Jessie and Mary “were passed over for employment in favor of white applicants who lacked degrees.” Records uncovered by the MFEPC found that 42 non-degreed teachers hired between 1957 through 1960 were all white and “had a maximum of 60 hours of college credits.” Jessie and Mary, on the other hand, were both degreed teachers with some credits toward a graduate degree. </p>
<h2>How the Brown decision hurt black teachers</h2>
<p>While the 1954 <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/history-of-education-quarterly/article/displacement-of-black-educators-postbrown-an-overview-and-analysis/39F33F06BE781D421943FBC057BA0499">Brown v. Board of Education decision</a> is often celebrated and considered a legal victory, many scholars believe it had a harmful effect on black teachers. In 1951, scholars writing in the <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2966458?casa_token=hJWNsTvlBvcAAAAA:m9du8py5MgBpuKGHXkjVy4qANlHnyn3NuQNRyT50IFS1Vfc1PfilIsSiioJVodnYGcZ6rHjX6z6Hg9EcxJfCCJVnCr3yFDgC4NyfDwyFmhDgn2OpWZLtgw&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">Journal of Negro Education</a> rightly warned that Brown “might conceivably” impact “Negro teachers”. Nationwide, school district leaders pushed back against Brown in two ways.</p>
<p>First, school leaders slow-walked the implementation of Brown – for many school districts as late as the <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED293936">mid-1980s</a>. Second, black teachers across the country lost their once-secure teaching jobs by the tens of thousands after Brown when black schools closed and black children integrated into white schools. In the South, for example, the number of black teachers had soared to around 90,000 pre-Brown. But by 1965 nearly half had <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jah/article-abstract/91/1/43/798551?redirectedFrom=fulltext">lost their jobs</a>. A 1965 report from the National Education Association, a leading labor union for teachers, concluded school districts had “no place for Negroes” in the wake of Brown. School officials railed against Brown and refused to hire black teachers like Jessie, turning them into what sociologist Oliver Cox described as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C44&q=Cox%2C+Oliver+C.+%E2%80%9CNegro+Teachers%3A+Martyrs+to+Integration%3F%2C%E2%80%9D+The+Nation%2C+Vol.+176+%28April+25%2C+1953%29%3A+347%E2%80%93348.&btnG=">“martyrs to integration</a>.”</p>
<p>My own <a href="https://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S2051-231720170000006002">research</a> confirms that the forced exodus of black women from the teaching profession was ignited by Brown. Discrimination by school leaders fueled the demographic decline of black teachers and remains one of the leading factors for their <a href="https://graduate.lclark.edu/live/files/18709-twp-li-2515-minority-teacher-fact-or">under-representation in the profession today</a>. </p>
<h2>First ruling of its kind</h2>
<p>At the eight-day public hearing, Jones admitted that “the hiring of Negro teachers would be something new and different and something we had not done before.” He stated he felt that the Negro teachers were “not up to par.” The hearing eventually revealed that applications for “Negroes” were kept in distinct folders – separated from the submissions of the white applicants.</p>
<p>After more than a year, the MFEPC issued a ruling in Jessie’s case. The decision got a <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=YK8DAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=En&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">brief mention</a> from Jet Magazine on Dec. 1, 1960:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the first ruling of its kind, the MFEPC ordered the Taylor Township School Board to hire Mrs. Mary Ruth Ross and Mrs. Jessie Simmons, two Negro teachers, and pay them back wages for the school years of 1959-60 and 1960-61. FEPC Commissioner Allan A. Zaun said the teachers were refused employment on the basis of race.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The attorney for the Taylor board of education, Harry F. Vellmure, threatened to challenge the ruling in court - all the way “to the Supreme Court if necessary,” according to the Detroit Courier. The board stuck to its position that Jessie and Mary were given full and fair consideration for teaching jobs and simply lost out to better qualified teachers.</p>
<p>As a result of noncompliance with the MFEPC’s order, Carl Levin, future U.S. senator and general counsel for the Michigan Civil Rights Commission, filed a discrimination lawsuit against the Taylor school district on Jessie’s and Mary’s behalf. Even though the matter did not reach higher courts, Vellmure filed several appeals that effectively slowed down the commission’s order for seven years.</p>
<p>As the lawsuit dragged on, Jessie became an elementary school teacher with the Sumpter School District in 1961. By 1965, she left Sumpter for the Romulus Community School District. According to Jessie’s children, they would continue in the Taylor school district and were known as the kids “whose mother filed the lawsuit against the school district.”</p>
<p>In 1967, after seven years of fighting the Taylor school district in local court, Jessie and Mary prevailed. They were awarded two years back pay and teaching positions. Saddled by hurt feelings after a long fight with the Taylor school district, Jessie declined the offer and continued teaching in Romulus. </p>
<p>The Simmons moved into a larger, newly constructed home on Lehigh Avenue. Jessie gave birth to her sixth child, Kimberly, one month before moving in. Although the new home was only two blocks south of their old home on Colgate Avenue, Jessie’s four surviving children recall that their lifestyle improved and their childhood was now defined by two eras: “before lawsuit life and after lawsuit life.” And by 1968, Jessie earned a master’s degree in education from Eastern Michigan University.</p>
<h2>Unsung civil rights hero</h2>
<p>At her retirement in 1986, Jessie’s former students recalled that she was an effective teacher of 30 years who was known as a disciplinarian with a profound sense of commitment to the children of Romulus.</p>
<p>Jessie’s story is a reminder that the civil rights movement did not push society to a better version of itself with a singular, vast wave toward freedom. Rather, it was fashioned by little ripples of courage with one person, one schoolteacher, at a time.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The Loss of Black Women Teachers.</span></figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111811/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Valerie Hill-Jackson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When Jessie Simmons applied for a teaching job in 1958, her application went to a separate file for “Negro teachers” and got rejected. An education scholar recounts how Simmons fought back and won.Valerie Hill-Jackson, Clinical Professor of Educator Preparation and Director, Educator Preparation and School Partnerships, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1023052018-09-11T10:36:16Z2018-09-11T10:36:16ZMinority job applicants with ‘strong racial identities’ may encounter less pay and lower odds of getting hired<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235698/original/file-20180910-123119-fejnia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research has shown African-Americans get fewer job callbacks than whites.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">astarot/Shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Race-based discrimination is common in the hiring process. </p>
<p>For example, racial minorities are less likely than whites to <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/0002828042002561">receive a callback</a> when they apply for a job. There are also <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/">wide earning gaps</a>, with African-Americans and Latinos earning a fraction of what whites and Asians do. </p>
<p>Yet despite laws that aim to <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/index.cfm">reduce employment discrimination</a> and <a href="http://www.people-press.org/2017/02/16/4-attitudes-toward-increasing-diversity-in-the-u-s/">improve attitudes toward diversity</a>, these patterns have not changed <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/114/41/10870.full">for decades</a>. </p>
<p>When analyzing these problems, researchers and others tend to focus on how the experiences of racial minorities compare with those of whites. Often missing is whether there are differences among individuals of the same racial group in terms of how they experience bias. </p>
<p>That is where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-11-2017-0073">my new study</a>, which focuses on perceptions of others’ racial identities, comes in.</p>
<h2>Perceived identities</h2>
<p>People have more than one identity, such as being a mom, a Muslim, an athlete, a scientist and so on. </p>
<p>Just as we commonly <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167291175001">think about the importance</a> of each of our identities to who we are – such as being a dad or very religious – <a href="http://doi.org/10.1207/s15327957pspr0201_2">we make the same assessments</a> of other people. That is, we evaluate other people’s identities to understand which ones are most fundamental to who they are. </p>
<p>And it turns out, the conclusions we come to about each other’s “perceived identities” can have a big effect on how we interact with them. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xU8P9K4AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">researcher</a> who has spent the last 19 years examining diversity and inclusion, I was interested in how perceptions of identity affected a racial minority’s prospects as a job applicant. More specifically, I wanted to know if the perception that an applicant has a strong racial identity affected her ability to get a job and how much she’d get paid. </p>
<h2>Presumed identity</h2>
<p>Past research has shown that our inferences about others’ personal identities can influence how we interact with them. </p>
<p><a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0146167203253466">In some cases</a>, people might talk about how their identity is important to them, or how it reflects a critical part of who they are as a person. In other cases, we make assessments based <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/silab/Documents/Kaiser%20&%20Pratt-Hyatt%20(2009).pdf">on cues</a>. For example, we might think someone strongly identifies as Latino when they are members of a Latino student organization. Or, we might infer a weak identity among people who <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-barkley-black-enough-perspec-1105-20141104-story.html">engage in actions</a> that are seemingly contrary to the interests of their group.</p>
<p>For example, psychologists <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0012877">Cheryl Kaiser and Jennifer Pratt-Hyatt found</a> found that whites interact more positively with racial minorities they believe weakly identify with their race – and more negatively with those with stronger racial identifies. Specifically, whites expressed more desire to be their friends and offer favorable ratings of their personality.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235700/original/file-20180910-123113-10huvmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235700/original/file-20180910-123113-10huvmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235700/original/file-20180910-123113-10huvmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235700/original/file-20180910-123113-10huvmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=395&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235700/original/file-20180910-123113-10huvmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235700/original/file-20180910-123113-10huvmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235700/original/file-20180910-123113-10huvmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=496&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Studies show whites are more likely to become friends with racial minorities they perceive as weakly identifying with their race.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MinDof/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Presumed identity and work</h2>
<p>Drawing on their work, Astin Vick, a former student of mine, and I <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/SBM-11-2017-0073">examined</a> whether African-American women’s and Latinas’ presumed racial identity affect their job ratings.</p>
<p>Using an <a href="https://www.mturk.com">online data collection platform</a>, we asked 238 white people who indicated that they currently or previously worked in the fitness industry to review the application of someone applying to be a club manager. They were told to review a job description, a hiring directive from the club owner, a summary of each applicant’s relevant background and a picture. </p>
<p>All applicants had the same experience, work history and education. The pictures were used to indicate an applicant’s race. Most importantly, we varied each applicant’s relevant affiliations and community service to suggest whether she had a strong identification to her racial group or a weak one. </p>
<p>For example, membership in the Latino Fitness Instructors Association or volunteering for former President Barack Obama’s campaign would signal a strong identification to an applicant’s Latina or black racial group. Belonging to the neutral-sounding Intercollegiate Athletics Coaches Association or volunteering for Obama’s opponent in the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney, would signal a weak one. </p>
<p>The participants then filled in a questionnaire to measure their perceptions of the applicant they reviewed, including work attributes such as “untested” or “expert,” hiring recommendation and suggested salary. </p>
<p>Our results showed that most people did in fact use cues from the application file to form views of the applicant’s racial identity, which in turn informed their hiring and salary recommendations. Essentially, as we expected, applicants perceived as identifying strongly with their racial group were less likely to be recommended for a job. And, when they were, received lower suggested salaries – on average US$2,000 less – than those signaling weak associations. </p>
<p>The story does not end there, though, since we also knew each participant’s gender. And we found that men showed a slightly different pattern than the one described above.</p>
<p>Men recommended roughly the same salaries for African-American women and Latinas who identified weakly with their racial groups. But for those with strong perceived identifies, they penalized Latinas far more than African-Americans. That is, they recommended the club pay Latinas with a strong racial identify about $5,000 less than African-Americans. </p>
<p>These small changes can add up over time. Over a 15-year tenure with a company, that difference results in $96,489 difference in inflation-adjusted earnings. </p>
<h2>The impact</h2>
<p>Our study illustrates several key points. </p>
<p>First, though racial minorities, as a collective, face bias in employment, there is considerable within group variability. An applicant’s specific race matters, as does her or his presumed racial identity. </p>
<p>Second, raters use cues on a resume to infer a job applicant’s racial identity. They then use this information in their decision-making. Aware of this pattern, some job seekers remove race-related activities on their resumes, what <a href="http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/FacultyAndResearch/Faculty/FacultyBios/Kang.aspx">Sonia Kang</a>, an associate professor of organizational behavior, refers to as <a href="http://doi.org/10.1177/0001839216639577">racial whitening</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, research has shown that diversity in the workplace <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2040">leads</a> to greater organizational performance and employee well-being. As such, employers would be wise to be on the lookout for biases like the one we found that are likely to lead to less diverse workforces and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000128">take steps</a> to overcome them when hiring new workers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102305/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>George B. Cunningham does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study suggests perceptions of how strongly people of color identify with their race can have a big impact on their job prospects and how much money they earn.George B. Cunningham, Professor of Sport Management and Sr. Assistant Provost for Graduate and Professional Studies, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/886932018-01-02T20:51:03Z2018-01-02T20:51:03ZBias creeps into reference checks, so is it time to ditch them?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199383/original/file-20171215-17848-6xu1sn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows gender bias even invades in the content of recommendations.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Connie/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As much as we’d like to think we’ve refined the hiring process over the years to carefully select the best candidate for the job, bias still creeps in.</p>
<p>Candidates who come from privileged backgrounds are more able to source impressive, well-connected referrers and this perpetuates the cycle of privilege. While the referrer’s reputation and personal clout make up one aspect of the recommendation, what they actually say - the content - completes the picture. </p>
<hr>
<p><strong><em>Research: <a href="https://theconversation.com/unconscious-bias-is-keeping-women-out-of-senior-roles-but-we-can-get-around-it-73518">Unconscious bias is keeping women out of senior roles, but we can get around it</a></em></strong></p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2819">Research shows</a> gender bias even invades in the content of recommendations. In this study female applicants for post-doctoral research positions in the field of geoscience were only half as likely as their male counterparts to receive excellent (as opposed to just good) endorsements from their referees. Since it’s unlikely that of the 1,200 recommendation letters analysed, female candidates were less excellent than the male candidates, it means something else is going on. </p>
<p>A result like this may be explained by the gender role conforming adjectives that are used to describe female versus male applicants. Women are more likely to be observed and described as “nurturing” and “helpful”, whereas men are attributed with stronger, more competence-based words like <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fa0016539">“confident” and “ambitious”</a>. This can, in turn, lead to stronger recommendations for male candidates. </p>
<p>Worryingly, in another study <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0181659">similar patterns</a> emerged in the way black versus white, and female versus male, medical students were described in performance evaluations. These were used as input to select residents. </p>
<p>In both cases the members of minority groups were described using less impressive words (like “competent” versus “exceptional”), a pattern that was observed even after controlling for licensing examination scores, an objective measure of competence. </p>
<h2>Recommendations aren’t good predictors of performance</h2>
<p>Let’s put the concerns about bias aside for a moment while we examine an even bigger question: are recommendations actually helpful, valid indicators of future job performance or are they based on outdated traditions that we keep enforcing?</p>
<p>Even back in the 90s, <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/009102609302200106">researchers</a> were trying to alert hiring managers to the ineffectiveness of this as a tool, noting some major problems. </p>
<p>The first problem is leniency, referees are allowed to be chosen by the candidate and tend to be overly positive. The second is too little knowledge of the applicant, as referees are unlikely to see all aspects of a prospective employees’ work and personal character. </p>
<p>Reliability is another problem. It turns out there is higher agreement between two letters written by the same referee for different candidates, than there is for two letters (written by two different referees) for the same candidate! </p>
<p><a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2010-16993-001">There is evidence</a> that people behave in different ways when they are in different situations at work, which would reasonably lead to different recommendations from various referees. However, the fact that there is more consistency between what referees say about different candidates than between what different referees say about the same candidate remains a problem. </p>
<h2>The alternatives to the referee</h2>
<p>There are a few initiatives that are currently being used as alternatives to standard recruitment processes. One example is gamification – where candidates play spatial awareness or other job-relevant games to demonstrate their competence. For example, <a href="https://www.thinkincircles.com/deloitte-gamify-the-recruitment-process/">Deloitte</a> has teamed up with software developer, Arctic Shores, for a fresh take on recruitment in an attempt to move away from the more traditional methods of recruitment.</p>
<p>However, gamification is not without its flaws – these methods would certainly favour individuals who are more experienced with certain kinds of video games, and gamers are more likely <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/232383/gender-split-of-us-computer-and-video-gamers/">to be male</a>. So it’s a bit of a catch-22 for recruiters who are introducing bias through a process designed to try to eliminate bias. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-do-you-think-you-are-the-problems-with-workplace-personality-tests-14164">Who do you think you are? The problems with workplace personality tests</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If companies are serious about overcoming potential bias in recruitment and selection processes, they should consider addressing gender, racial, economic and other forms of inequality. One way to do this is through broadening the recruitment pool by making sure the language they use in position descriptions and jobs ads is more inclusive. Employers can indicate flexible work options are available and make the decision to choose the minority candidates when they are equally qualified as other candidates. </p>
<p>Another option is to increase the diversity of the selection committee to add some new perspectives to previously homogeneous committees. Diverse selectors are <a href="https://www.nature.com/news/elite-labs-hire-more-men-than-women-1.15483">more likely to speak up</a> about and consider the importance of hiring more diverse candidates. </p>
<p>Job seekers could even try running a letter of reference through software, such as <a href="https://textio.com/">Textio,</a> that reports gender bias in pieces of text and provides gender-neutral alternatives. But just as crucial is the need for human resources departments to start looking for more accurate mechanisms to evaluate candidates’ competencies.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88693/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Melissa Wheeler has engaged in paid and pro-bono consulting and research relating to issues of social justice, applied ethics, and gender equality (e.g., Our Watch, Queen Victoria Women’s Centre, National Association of Women in Operations). She is affiliated with the Centre for Ethical Leadership, which receives funding from several partner organisations, in the private and public sector, including from the Victorian Government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Victor Sojo does research with a number of partner organisations. Currently he is working with Cohealth, EACH, Eastern Community Legal Center, Monash City Council and Oxfam Australia. Victor is also a pro-bono consultant in the Victorian Government Recruit Smarter Initiative. Additionally, Victor is a member of VicHealth's Leading Thinkers Taskforce for behavioural insights & gender equality.</span></em></p>Even back in the 90s, researchers were trying to alert hiring managers to the ineffectiveness of this as a tool, noting some major problems.Melissa A. Wheeler, Research Fellow, The University of MelbourneVictor Sojo, Lecturer, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/673272016-10-20T12:15:37Z2016-10-20T12:15:37ZBritain’s great meritocracy gap – why businesses must widen their talent pool<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142496/original/image-20161020-8828-cjecc9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C635%2C4004%2C3212&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Britain’s new prime minister has put meritocracy <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/britain-the-great-meritocracy-prime-ministers-speech">at the heart of her government’s agenda</a>. It’s a noble goal. This idea of allowing those with the most talent to rise to the top of society and occupy the best jobs must surely be good for society. Similarly, attracting and promoting the best talent has to be good for business.</p>
<p>Rising <a href="https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/wealth-tracker-2016">wealth inequality</a>, however, suggests that the UK has a long way to go to becoming a meritocratic society. If Theresa May wants to make Britain a place where people have “the chance to go as far as their talents will take them”, businesses need to look very carefully at how they recruit and select their future leaders. </p>
<p>Recent research we’ve worked on for the government’s Social Mobility Commission, into the workings of professions such as <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/434791/A_qualitative_evaluation_of_non-educational_barriers_to_the_elite_professions.pdf">law, accounting</a> and <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/549994/Socio-economic_diversity_in_life_sciences_and_investment_banking.pdf">investment banking</a> in the City of London suggests that the way meritocracy is discussed can actually curtail opportunities for social mobility. The findings show that new, more formal recruitment techniques offer the illusion that the City is “<a href="http://www.managementtoday.co.uk/forget-brown-shoes-investment-banks-fiercely-meritocratic/any-other-business/article/1407668#z87QqdbdxugUyAir.991">fiercely meritocratic</a>”. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142490/original/image-20161020-8869-4w3piu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Theresa May has made the case for meritocracy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/number10gov/29457570052/in/dateposted/">Number 10</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet it remains significantly more difficult for hard-working, talented people from lower socio-economic groups to gain access to these top jobs, compared to their more privileged peers. In particular, there is a disproportionate number of people working in the elite professions who have been privately educated. Research by social mobility charity <a href="http://www.suttontrust.com/researcharchive/pathways-banking/">the Sutton Trust</a>
recently found that while 7% of the general population attends a fee-paying school, 34% of new entrants to the banking sector were privately educated, rising to 69% of those working in private equity.</p>
<h2>Appearances can be deceptive</h2>
<p>Organisations certainly cannot be blamed for looking to recruit the most talented students to work for them and in many ways the recruitment and selection processes adopted by elite firms appear to be meritocratic and fair – everyone is judged by the same yardstick. The difficulty arises when trying to assess what is meant by talent. </p>
<p>Elite professions largely equate talent with good A-Level grades and a degree from a narrow range of the “top” universities. At first glance, pre-screening of applicants based on A-Level results may seem a fair way of dealing with large numbers of recruits. But A-Level performance is <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-mobility-why-does-private-school-give-you-such-a-leg-up-45739">strongly correlated with social background</a>, which serves to disadvantage certain groups. Similarly, focusing on students who have gained degrees at elite universities might appear sensible, but those universities are themselves more likely to recruit students <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-30939926">from privileged backgrounds</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142498/original/image-20161020-8852-1gnpqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/142498/original/image-20161020-8852-1gnpqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142498/original/image-20161020-8852-1gnpqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142498/original/image-20161020-8852-1gnpqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142498/original/image-20161020-8852-1gnpqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142498/original/image-20161020-8852-1gnpqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/142498/original/image-20161020-8852-1gnpqu3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Privilege persists throughout education.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Less objective aspects of the recruitment process can further disadvantage those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. For example, final stage interviews with senior staff are often used to judge whether the applicant would fit into the firm. We were told repeatedly in interviews we conducted with staff across law, accounting and investment banking how important it is that candidates are “polished” and give off the “right” impression. </p>
<p>This may seem logical in a competitive, client-facing environment, but, as our interviewees explained, applicants who have the necessary intellect and aptitude can be rejected purely because they are wearing the “wrong” tie. Plus, an increasingly early start to the recruitment cycle involves applying for internships either before or in the first year of university study. This means that if applicants lack the social networks which provide knowledge about opportunities they are likely to miss out. Thus, the status quo is maintained and it is difficult for those from less privileged backgrounds to access elite professions.</p>
<h2>Redefining talent</h2>
<p>So what can these firms do? Some are clearly working on this and the increase in apprenticeships and post-18 entrance schemes in accounting has been one response. Other leading firms have introduced the use of <a href="http://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/press-releases/articles/largest-british-business-to-adopt-contextualised-recruitment.html">contextual data</a>, which allows them to see how applicants compare to peers at their school, to help them judge A-Level results. And many firms engage with third sector organisations such as the Sutton Trust and the Social Mobility Foundation to offer outreach programmes and work experience. These have been successful up to a point, yet change appears slow. </p>
<p>In order to facilitate further change it is important that firms measure and monitor the social background of both new recruits and current employees; examine all aspects of how they attract and select applicants and consider ring-fencing opportunities for internships from non-traditional candidates. </p>
<p>They should also think critically about how they define merit. Should a candidate’s background be taken into account when making judgements about how they present themselves? If Britain is to be the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/britain-the-great-meritocracy-prime-ministers-speech">“world’s great meritocracy”</a>, firms need to focus on selecting applicants on the basis of their potential to develop the attributes of a good professional, not the polish that comes with a more privileged background.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanne Duberley received funding from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission to undertake the research upon which this article is based. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Ashley received funding from the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission to undertake the research upon which this article is based. </span></em></p>Research shows that the way meritocracy is discussed can actually curtail opportunities for social mobility.Joanne Duberley, Professor of Organisation Studies, University of BirminghamLouise Ashley, Lecturer in Organization Studies, Royal Holloway University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/516922015-12-08T12:30:40Z2015-12-08T12:30:40ZWhat the David and Goliath story teaches business about getting ahead<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/104694/original/image-20151207-3147-15pwghf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It doesn't have to be an uphill battle.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the famous Bible story, the young boy David beat Goliath by using a strategy Goliath wasn’t expecting. Instead of fighting the giant in the conventional way – with armour and sword – he used a slingshot and stones to fell him. It’s a lesson that Malcolm Gladwell draws on in his <a href="http://gladwell.com/david-and-goliath/">latest book</a>, which charts the success of underdogs throughout history. And it’s a lesson that many businesses can learn from.</p>
<p>Getting the best talent is a key factor, particularly when your company is a “David” competing against an incumbent “Goliath”. To win this “unfair” competition for talent you need to do something the Goliath tends not to do. <a href="http://www.futilitycloset.com/2011/07/19/the-linda-problem/">The following question</a> helps us understand how and why.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Linda is 31-years-old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in antinuclear demonstrations. </p>
<p>Which is more probable? </p>
<p>(1) Linda is a bank teller. </p>
<p>(2) Linda is a bank teller and is active in the feminist movement.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The common answer is (2). But the probability of both events occurring together (Linda being a bank teller and active in the feminist movement) cannot be greater than the first one alone.</p>
<p>This classic “Linda problem” was developed by the famous behavioural scientists <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/90/4/293/">Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman</a>. They argue that people can quickly and easily come up with a stereotype based on the description about Linda and then judge the second statement to be more similar to that stereotype. The image of an active feminist is so vivid that people cannot associate that with a (duller stereotype of) bank teller. </p>
<p>Our minds think like this all the time because the mental shortcut often saves time and energy and it is usually reasonably accurate. A similar phenomenon was famously documented in the book and film Moneyball. It told the story of the struggling Oakland A’s who, despite having one of the lowest payrolls in Major League Baseball, were able to win as many games as Goliaths like the New York Yankees.</p>
<p>In Major League Baseball, many team scouts and managers evaluate the potential of young players based on whether they have the right “look” – one that’s similar to the stereotype of star players. When you can get it right more than 70% of the time and it only takes you, literally, a quick look, why bother checking players’ statistics? </p>
<p>The Oakland A’s exploited the blind spot of the bigger teams in the league by hiring against stereotype. Prediction based on stereotype is reasonably good but entails two pitfalls: (1) a false positive error (hiring a person who fits the stereotype but does not really have the talent) and (2) a false negative error (omitting a person who does not fit in the stereotype but actually has superior talent). </p>
<p>It is the false negative errors made by Goliath teams that smaller teams can exploit. And they can gain advantage by paying the underdogs less than they are actually worth because they have been undervalued due to stereotype bias. </p>
<p>Companies have adopted similar strategies. The corporate law firm Clifford Chance, for example, employed a CV blind strategy in the UK <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/exclusive-law-firm-clifford-chance-adopts-cv-blind-policy-to-break-oxbridge-recruitment-bias-9050227.html">to break the Oxbridge recruitment bias</a>. A degree from Oxford or Cambridge is so salient that it easily creates a stereotype of elite and means many UK legal firms are <a href="http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/analysis/2354461/the-oxbridge-conveyor-belt-a-progress-report-on-law-firms-efforts-to-widen-the-graduate-recruitment-pool">over-represented by their graduates</a>. </p>
<p>Of course, many of them are competent. But inevitably some Oxbridge graduates are overrated and become disappointments due to false positive mistakes. More importantly, firms can omit hidden gems from other universities due to false negative mistakes. Clifford Chance’s CV blind strategy forces evaluators to judge candidates’ potential based on track records instead of using the stereotype shortcut. </p>
<p>Similarly, many organisations have vowed to adopt a name-blind policy <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e5aef384-7b36-11e5-a1fe-567b37f80b64.html#axzz3te9WVIal">to fight against racism</a>. This strategy should be even more appealing for smaller firms because hiring against the negative stereotype can help them identify hidden, undervalued gems that others overlook. </p>
<p>Goliaths often fail to learn from this mistake of being influenced by stereotypes when hiring talent. Successful firms tend to be overconfident and have little incentive to change strategy. On the one hand, missing hidden gems is an invisible error – employers rarely follow what happens to the candidates they reject. Moreover, those hired are trained and developed so they can perform competently even when they were really false positive hires. But this can falsely boost Goliath’s confidence in the stereotype hiring strategy. The implication is that the Goliath tends to develop a blind spot naturally, awaiting some smart David to exploit them. </p>
<p>One caveat for David companies that discover a winning way to do things differently: keep the success to yourself. The Oakland A’s did the opposite and let Michael Lewis write a bestseller on their strategy. The publication of Moneyball in 2003 marked the decline of their performances because the Goliaths started imitating their approach. There is a trade off between your ego and success: if you want to keep beating the competition, don’t let others know how you did it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/51692/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chengwei Liu does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>How to beat Goliath when competing for the best talent: hire against stereotype and keep quiet when you find the right formula.Chengwei Liu, Associate Professor of Strategy and Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/438972015-07-21T10:18:35Z2015-07-21T10:18:35ZHere’s how minority job seekers battle bias in the hiring process<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89083/original/image-20150720-14732-1keuujx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">What's a better strategy: cast a wide net or tailor it narrowly?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Classified ad via www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Discrimination in the hiring process has limited the opportunities available to both racial minorities – such as African Americans – and women, with important consequences for their well-being and careers.</p>
<p>For example, research <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w9873">has shown</a> that white job applicants receive 50% more callbacks for interviews than equally qualified African American applicants. And, in the low-wage labor market, scholars <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/374403">have found</a> that African American men <em>without</em> criminal records receive similar callback rates for interviews as white men just released from prison. Researchers have also <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w5024">documented</a> discrimination in hiring against women, with particularly strong penalties against <a href="http://gender.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/motherhoodpenalty.pdf">mothers</a>.</p>
<p>But how does this reality affect these groups – African Americans and women – as they hunt for jobs? Do they tailor their searches narrowly to help them avoid discrimination, sticking to job opportunities deemed “appropriate” for them? Or do they cast a wider net with the hopes of maximizing their chances of finding a job that does not discriminate?</p>
<p>Until now, we have known little about this issue, largely because no existing data source has closely followed individuals through their job search. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/681072?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">New research</a> that we recently published in the American Journal of Sociology attempts to address this limitation by drawing on two original datasets that track job seekers and the positions to which they apply.</p>
<p>The results of our study point to three general conclusions about the job search process: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>African Americans cast a wider net than whites while searching for work</p></li>
<li><p>women tend to apply to a narrower set of job types than men, often targeting roles that have historically been dominated by women</p></li>
<li><p>past experiences of discrimination appear to drive, at least in part, the broader job search patterns of African Americans.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>On an important side note, these racial differences exist for both men and women and these gender differences exist for both whites and African Americans.</p>
<p>Let’s go into a little more detail on these three main findings.</p>
<h2>Casting a wide net</h2>
<p>Our analysis shows that African Americans apply to a greater range of job types with a broader range of occupational characteristics than similar whites. </p>
<p>For example, one of our survey respondents was previously employed as a “material moving worker.” Over the course of the survey, this respondent applied for jobs consistent with his prior work experience, such as “material handler” and “warehouse worker.” </p>
<p>However, the respondent also reported applying for jobs in retail sales, as an IT technician, a delivery driver, a security guard, a mail-room clerk and a short order cook. This respondent applied to jobs in a total of seven distinct occupations over the course of the survey, which represents a fairly broad approach to job search. </p>
<p>While this is just one example, it was typical. In both of the datasets we examined, African Americans systematically applied to a larger number of distinct job types than whites with similar levels of education and work experience. </p>
<h2>Women and self-selection</h2>
<p>Our study demonstrates that women pursued a search strategy very different than that of African Americans.</p>
<p>Women appeared to self-select into distinctive occupational categories consistent with historically gendered job types, such as office and administrative support positions. </p>
<p>During their job search, women also applied to a narrower range of occupations than men with similar education and work experience. </p>
<p>For example, women wanting to work in retail sales were more likely to apply strictly for that type of position during their job search. Men with similar aspirations, on the other hand, were more likely to branch out and apply to adjacent job types, such as wholesale, advertising or insurance sales.</p>
<h2>Past discrimination drives blacks’ behavior</h2>
<p>So what accounts for these race and gender differences in how people search for a job?</p>
<p>For African American job seekers, we found that perceptions of or experiences with racial discrimination played an important role in explaining their greater search breadth.</p>
<p>In one of the surveys we conducted, we asked job seekers about their experiences with racial discrimination at work. In our analysis, we found that individuals who reported that they had previously observed or experienced racial discrimination in the workplace were more likely to cast a wide net in their job search compared with those without such experience.</p>
<h2>A gender-segregated workforce</h2>
<p>But if discrimination, in part, drives the search behavior of African Americans, why do we not see similar adaptations by women, who also undoubtedly face employment discrimination? </p>
<p>We suspect the answer is related to the deeper and more explicit nature of gender inequality in the labor market. Occupations remain highly <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-232X.2012.00674.x/abstract;jsessionid=5977E75500AD49446A17155857B8C0A8.f01t02?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=">segregated by gender</a>, and individuals from an early age can identify male- and female-typed jobs. </p>
<p>This reality affects women’s <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/321299?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">occupational aspirations</a> as well as perceptions of the <a href="http://asr.sagepub.com/content/69/1/93.short">constraints</a> they may encounter when deviating from gendered patterns. In either scenario, women’s self-selection into female-typed occupations may allow them to avoid jobs where they are more likely to experience discrimination. At the same time, this strategy likely reproduces gender segregation at work, which is an important source of gender inequality. </p>
<p>For African Americans, things are quite different. There are far fewer readily identifiable “black” or “white” jobs. The barriers facing African American job seekers can pop up across the labor market. Thus, it is more difficult for African Americans to target jobs where they will be able to avoid discrimination. </p>
<p>But a broad job search allows black job seekers to reach otherwise difficult-to-identify job opportunities in which racial discrimination is less prevalent. Given the challenges of anticipating where and when discrimination is likely to occur, applying to a broad set of job types raises the probability that an African American job seeker will apply to a job that does not discriminate.</p>
<h2>Key consequences and takeaways</h2>
<p>Job search strategies matter and can make a big difference in everything from lifetime earnings to potential career opportunities. </p>
<p>We find that broad search is associated with being more likely to receive a job offer, but also with receiving lower wage offers. Thus, job seekers appear to face a trade-off between the goals of finding any job and finding a good job. The broader search patterns among African Americans, therefore, may reduce some of the employment gap but contribute to the long-standing racial disparity in wages. </p>
<p>Second, to the extent that broad search leads job seekers to occupations that are different from their past work experiences, this strategy may limit African Americans’ ability to build coherent careers that are consistent with their experience and aspirations. Given significant racial differences in search breadth, these dynamics are likely to contribute to persistent racial inequalities in labor market outcomes. </p>
<p>In the case of women, limiting the scope of their search likely reinforces existing patterns of occupational segregation, which has consequences for the <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2782402?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">gender earnings gap</a> and implications for other forms of persistent gender inequality.</p>
<h2>Where does this leave us?</h2>
<p>Together, the findings from our study suggest that the job search process plays an important role in shaping, reinforcing and sometimes counteracting inequality in the labor market. </p>
<p>At the same time, discrimination and other barriers to employment must be considered to fully understand how labor market inequality is generated. </p>
<p>And, as the comparison of race and gender suggests, how individuals adapt to workplace barriers can take different forms and have distinct consequences. </p>
<p>Our research points to the importance of systematically examining both job search processes as well as discriminatory behavior and other constraints in the workplace if we hope to fully understand and rectify persistent racial and gender inequalities in the labor market.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/43897/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David S. Pedulla receives funding from the Russell Sage Foundation and the UC-Davis Center for Poverty Research. His previous research has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, and the Employment Instability, Family Well-Being, and Social Policy Network.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Devah Pager receives funding from the Russell Sage Foundation. She has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. </span></em></p>Past hiring discrimination appears to lead African Americans to cast a wide net, while women tend to seek out roles historically associated with their gender.David S. Pedulla, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology & Population Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal ArtsDevah Pager, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, Harvard UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.