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Running Header: EMPLOYMENT OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
Racial Discrimination: Does It Exist In Employment Of African Americans?
A Paper Presented to Carolyn R. Fallahi, Ph.D.
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Psychology 430
Suzan Kyeremateng
Central Connecticut State University
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Abstract
Most African American college students expect that when they study hard, get good grades and
graduate from college, they will be able to compete fairly with others when looking for a job, or
when being promoted. But is this really true? Does racial discrimination of African Americans
exist in hiring practices and promotions? What recruiting methods are used by organizations?
Do employers take necessary steps to ensure that minorities are given an equal opportunity to
apply and compete for vacant positions?
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Racial Discrimination: Does it exist in the Employment of African Americans?
Racial discrimination appears in employment practices of African Americans, from the
selection of a candidate for new hire to promotion of the existing employee. The issue of racial
discrimination has always been a controversial topic in the history of the United States. For
years African Americans have been subjected to inequality, beginning with slavery.
Racism is any attitude, action, or institutional structure or any social policy that
subordinates persons or groups because of their color (Allport, in Sue, 2003). Some people are
more comfortable working in an environment where people look the same and have basically the
same backgrounds or beliefs. Stereotypes and misconceptions of people in different groups are
two reasons for racism. Subtle, everyday discrimination may become even more common, as
blatant racism becomes less prevalent among dominant group members. There is substantial
evidence that expressions of blatant racism (e.g. ‘Blacks are inherently inferior’) have become
less socially acceptable in recent years, and Americans are less willing to publicly endorse such
beliefs (Bobo in Deitch, Barsky, Butz, Chan, Brief & Bradley, 2003).
Three studies were conducted using secondary data to provide evidence for the existence
of everyday workplace discrimination against Blacks and does it effect their well-being. The
conclusion was that everyday discrimination does occur in the workplace and that it negatively
effects Blacks’ well-being. As organizational researchers are beginning to turn their attention
toward understanding the experience of being a target of discrimination on the job, these sorts of
everyday encounters with racism should not be ignored. Everyday discrimination is part of the
reality of being Black in America, and it has real effects in the lives of Black Americans. Thus,
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attempts to ‘embrace diversity’ and make workplaces welcoming to minorities will need to
address the reality of everyday discrimination (Deitch, Barsky, Butz, Chan, Brief and Bradley,
2003).
One possible area in employment in which it is very easy to discriminate is the reviewing
of applications. Employment applications do not require the information of someone’s race to
determine a person’s eligibility for a position, but other questions on the application might
indicate race, such as a name, the school attended, the town or country where the school was
located.
Selecting a candidate can take many forms and is an important process for both employer
and employee. The use of selection devices is also another area where discrimination could
occur. Selection devices may include, a structured interview, unstructured interview,
testing of skills appropriate to the job and a physical test. Concerned organizations should take
into consideration legal aspects when administering a selection device. Because of the
perception of possible legal problems, some organizations have discontinued the use of some
highly valid selection devices; and they have chosen, instead, to use less valid selection devices
that are thought to be legally safer (Terpstra, Mohamed, Kethley, 1999). Out of nine election
devices, unstructured interviews, structured interviews, biographical information blanks,
cognitive ability tests, personality tests, honesty tests, physical ability tests, work
sample/performance tests and assessment centers, the unstructured interview is by far the most
frequently challenged selection device. Cognitive ability test and physical ability tests were the
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next most frequently challenged devices. The current results suggest that some valid selection
devices; structured interviews, biographical information blanks and work assessment centers
may also be relatively safe to use from a legal perspective (Terpstra, Mohamed & Kethley,
1999).
Studies support the fact that persons of color are often viewed as suspect in their
qualifications, whereas Whites are not subjected to similar evaluation because of their skin color
(Sue, 2003).
Minorities make up a growing number of the workforce, mostly in lower paying jobs than
Whites. There have been laws put in place by the U.S. government to ensure equal opportunity
in the job market, one such program is Affirmative Action, another is Title VII, but even with
these policies, the pay for minorities continues to lag behind their White counterparts. Statistics
show that White Euro-American males make up 33% of the population and most of them occupy
the upper level jobs (Sue, 2003). With the above in mind, the employer most likely to do the
recruiting, employing or interviewing of candidates would be a White male.
One explanation of the persistence of earnings discrimination that is frequently cited is
the existence of what has been labeled as “dual labor markets” (Morrison & Von Glinow, 1990;
Morrison, White & Van Velson, 1987). A greater number of men employed in the primary labor
market compared to women. This primary market offers better jobs with higher pay rates.
Conversely, the secondary labor market is dominated by women and minorities and contains jobs
that are low paying and low-status. The notion is of different labor markets based on
demographic factors such as sex and race (Murrell & James, 2001).
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Executive order 11246 was signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, which
prohibits discrimination in hiring or employment decisions on the basis of race, color, gender,
religion, and national origin. It applies to all nonexempt government contractors and
subcontractors and federally assisted construction contracts and subcontracts in excess of
$10,000. Some people believe that the policy of Affirmative Action is preferential treatment. In
fact it is not. It does not mean that unqualified persons should be hired or promoted over other
people. What affirmative action does mean is that positive steps must be taken to ensure equal
employment opportunity for traditionally disadvantaged groups (Employment Standards
Administration).
The Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Administration’s Office of Federal
Contract Compliance Program (OFCCP) requires a contractor, as a condition of having a federal
contract, to engage in a self-analysis for the purpose of discovering any barriers to equal
employment opportunity. No other Government agency conducts comparable systemic reviews
of employers’ employment practices to ferret out discrimination. OFCCP also investigates
complaints of discrimination. In Fiscal Year 1999, OFCCP conducted 3,833 compliance reviews.
Moreover, OFCCP programs prevent discrimination (Department of Labor, 2004).
Of several pieces of legislation enacted by Congress to promote the goal of equal
employment opportunity, none has been the basis for more litigation, nor the subject of more
intense and wide ranging judicial and academic scrutiny, than Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, as amended by the Equal Employment Opportunity Act of 1972. The explosion of
litigation that followed the enactment of Title VII can be traced, at least in part, to the expansive
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language Congress used to define the classes of persons and employment-related decisions
subject to the Act’s substantive proscriptions. Title VII prohibits employers, unions and
employment agencies from discriminating with respect to a broadly defined class of
employment-related decisions on the basis of five specifically enumerated classifications-race,
color, religion, national origin and sex. It also created the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC), a five member, Presidentially-appointed agency, to administer and
interpret its provisions (Friedman & Stricker, Jr, 1993).
Even with Affirmative Action and Title VII in place, Organizations continue to struggle
with providing balanced practices towards African Americans.
In 1972, upon finding that, for
almost four decades, the Alabama Safety Department had systematically excluded blacks from
employment as state troopers in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, the District Court
issued an order imposing a hiring quota and requiring the Department to refrain from engaging in
discrimination in its employment practices, including promotions. By 1979, no blacks had
attained the upper ranks of the Department. The court therefore approved a partial consent
decree in which the Department agreed to develop within one year a procedure for promotion to
corporal that would have no adverse impact on blacks and would comply with the Uniform
Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (guidelines), and thereafter to develop similar
procedures for the other upper ranks. As of 1981, however, more than a year after the 1979
Decree’s deadline, no black troopers had been promoted. The Supreme Court decided in
February, 1987, that the Alabama Department of Public Safety was required to implement a
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promotion scheme in which half of the department’s promotions to Corporal would go to black
officers if enough qualified blacks were available (United States v. Paradise, 1986/1987).
In 1974, petitioners of United Steelworkers of America and Kaiser Aluminum Chemical
Corp entered into a master collective bargaining agreement covering terms and conditions of
employment at 15 Kaiser Plants. The agreement included an affirmative action plan designed to
eliminate conspicuous racial imbalances in Kaiser’s almost exclusively white craft work forces
by reserving for black employees 50% of the openings in in-plant craft training programs until
the percentage of black craft workers in a plant is commensurate with the percentage of blacks in
the local labor force.
Weber, an employee who was white, was passed over for the program. Weber claimed
that he was the victim of reverse discrimination. The Supreme Court held that the challenged
Kaiser-USWA plan falls on the permissible side of the line. The purposes of the plan mirror
those of the statute, being designed to break down old patterns of racial segregation and
hierarchy, and being structured to open employment opportunities for Negroes in occupations
which have been traditionally closed to them. At the same time, the plan does not unnecessarily
trammel the interests of white employees, neither requiring the discharge of white workers and
their replacement with new black hirees, nor creating an absolute bar to the advancement of
white employees, since half of those trained in the program will be white. Moreover, the plan is
a temporary measure, not intended to maintain racial balance, but simply to eliminate a manifest
racial imbalance (United Steelworkers of America, AFL-CIO-CLC v. Weber, 1979).
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Hugh Price, President and CEO of the Urban League (2001), believes that many companies in
industries like construction, which have large number of employees with only a high school
education, often have an even harder time with diversity issues than companies with a more
college-education workforce. “This can be prevented,” said Price. “But companies need to
recognize that many white supervisors and line people have not had the opportunity to work or
go to school with people outside their race, just like many black students have missed the same
opportunity,” he said. “And if corporations are not proactive in minimizing these situations,
litigation becomes necessary (Simmons, 2001).
Since 1965, equality for African Americans in the workplace has not changed very much,
there is a change in the way Whites in society handle discrimination especially in the workplace
– it is now more subtle but studies show this has a negative effect on their well-being. Large
companies are being fined and mandated by the Courts to incorporate strategies in their
companies to accommodate equal opportunities. So far it has been a very slow process.
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References
Bobo, 1998. As cited in Subtle Yet Significant: The existence and impact of everyday
racial discrimination in the workplace, Deitch, E., Barsky, A., Butz, R., Chan,
S. & Bradley J., 2003
Deitch, E. A., Barsky, A., Butz, R. M., Chan, S., Brief, A., & Bradley, J. C. (2003).
Subtle Yet Significant: The existence and impact of everyday racial
discrimination in the workplace. Human Relations.
Department of Labor, Facts on Executive Order 11246 -- Affirmative Action. Retrieved
November 18, 2004.
Employment Standards Administration, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Fact
Sheet
Friedman J., Strickler, Jr., J. (1993). The Law of Employment Discrimination. Cases and
Materials – Third Edition.
Morrison & Von Glinow, 1990; Morrison, White & Van Velson, 1987, as cited in Gender
and Diversity in Organizations: Past, Present, and Future Directions, Murrell, A.,
James, E., 2001.
Murrell, A., James, E. (2001). Gender and Diversity in Organizations: Past, Present, and
Future Directions.
United States of America, AFL-CIO-CLC v. Weber, 1979, No. 78-432.
United States v. Paradise, 1986/1987, No. 85-999.
Simmons, C. (2001). Black Enterprise. 32, 3, 26.
Sue, D. ( 2003). Overcoming our racism: The Journey to liberation. (1st ed.) San
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References
Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers
Terpstra, D.E., Mohamed, A.A. & Kethley, R.B. (1999). An Analysis of Federal Court
Cases Involving Nine Selection Devices. International Journal of Selection and
Assessment, 7, 1.