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$70 million verdict against texas company in employment discrimination case.

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Gavel for judge, law and order

Last month, a jury in Texas delivered a stunning $70 million verdict in favor of 10 employees who worked for Glow Networks. Nine of the ten plaintiffs were Black employees. The case, Yarbrough, et al. v. Glow Networks, Inc., is a potent reminder about the continuing effects of employment discrimination as well as the legal remedies that exist to combat unequal treatment and retaliation at work.

The plaintiffs are represented by The Sanford Firm.

The defendants are represented by Ford & Harrison.

Background Of The Case

The employees filed their lawsuit against Glow Networks in a Texas federal court in December 2019 (Civil No. 4:19-cv-00905, E.D. Tex. 2019). According to their complaint, numerous Black employees faced continuing race discrimination at work, including promotion denials, unequal pay, and a hostile work environment.

At trial, the employees sought only compensatory/emotional distress damages and punitive damages in the lawsuit and did not seek lost pay damages. For this reason, their decision to proceed solely under 42 U.S.C. 1981 (Section 1981) rather than including a claim under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (Title VII) was particularly important and will be discussed in more detail below.

Ultimately, the jury determined that the employees had proved that Glow Networks had subjected them to unlawful discrimination and retaliation at work. This discrimination and retaliation included demotions, promotion denials, and getting fired or laid off.

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Notably, the jury then awarded each plaintiff $3 million in emotional distress damages and $4 million in punitive damages, which are designed to punish employers in particularly egregious cases of employment discrimination. The total award to the 10 employees thus equaled $70 million (this amount does not include any attorneys’ fees and trial expenses that the court may later order the company to pay).

Glow Networks will have an opportunity to appeal the jury verdict if it chooses to do so.

Differences Between Section 1981 And Title VII Race Discrimination Claims

On a broader level, both Section 1981 and Title VII outlaw employment discrimination based on race. In the Yarbrough case, the employees filed their case under Section 1981 instead of Title VII. This choice paid off handsomely as a key difference between these two employment discrimination laws is that Title VII caps the maximum amount that a plaintiff can receive for compensatory and punitive damages at $300,000. Title VII’s cap would thus result in a maximum jury verdict of $3,000,000 for these 10 plaintiffs. Section 1981, however, has no cap on compensatory and punitive damages, which resulted in a $70 million verdict, an eye-popping $67 million more than could have been awarded under Title VII.

Other distinctions between Title VII and Section 1981 exist, including:

Title VII outlaws disparate impact discrimination but Section 1981 does not

Both statutes prohibit intentional discrimination in employment based on race. But Title VII also prohibits using hiring practices that are neutral on their face (such as written tests), which have a discriminatory outcome: disproportionately excluding female, African-American, and other protected classes of applicants.

Under the disparate impact theory, even if the employer did not intend for an employment practice to exclude protected groups, if the practice ultimately has the effect of rejecting an excessive number of otherwise qualified, for example, female or African-American applicants, then using the practice might violate Title VII.

Section 1981, on the other hand, outlaws only intentional discrimination.

Section 1981 does not require the employee to file an EEOC charge

To file a Title VII lawsuit in court, an employee must fist have exhausted their administrative remedies by filing a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Depending on which state the employee works in, the time period can be either 180 or 300 days to file the charge if the employee works in the private sector. Different procedures and time periods apply if the employee works for the federal, state, or local government.

Section 1981, however, does not require an employee to file a charge of discrimination with the EEOC. This distinction is particularly important if the employee has missed the deadline to file an EEOC charge of discrimination because the employee may still be able to assert a claim under Section 1981.

Section 1981 has a longer statute of limitations than Title VII

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As noted above, the deadline for filing an EEOC charge of discrimination can be up to 300 days, depending on where you work and whether you are in the public or private sector. Also, a Title VII lawsuit must generally be filed within 90 days after the EEOC’s Right to Sue Notice is received.

Claims asserted under Section 1981 though have a significantly longer statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit. Indeed, an employee may file a Section 1981 within four years of the violation. Jones v. R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co ., 541 U.S. 369 (2004).

Section 1981 applies only to race discrimination while Title VII covers more classes of people

Section 1981 provides several additional benefits not contained in Title VII, but in at least one area–scope of protected classes–Title VII offers broader coverage.

Section 1981 covers discrimination based only on race or ethnicity.

Title VII covers discrimination based not only on an employee’s race and ethnicity, but also protects against discrimination related to, for example, sex, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

The Yarbrough jury verdict highlights the work that remains to be done to eradicate employment discrimination, but also the promise that laws like Section 1981 and Title VII can provide a powerful weapon to improve workplaces for everyone. As one of the lawyers for the employees, Brian Sanford, told BET about the jury verdict, “[t]hey were sending the message,” he said. “Don’t do this in the 21st century. Stop.”

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Studies find evidence of systemic racial discrimination across multiple domains in the United States

Harvard Pop Center faculty member Sara Bleich and her colleagues have published two studies examining experiences of racial discrimination in the United States.

One study found substantial black-white disparities in experiences of discrimination in the U.S. spanning multiple domains including health care, employment, and law enforcement, while a separate study found similar discrimination among Latinos in the United States. Given the connection between racial discrimination and poor health outcomes in both groups of Americans, the study calls for more interventions to address broad racial discrimination.

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Justice and unintentional discrimination in health care: A qualitative content analysis

Mohammadjavad hosseinabadi-farahani.

1 Department of Nursing, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran

Masoud Fallahi-Khoshknab

Narges arsalani, mohammadali hosseini, eesa mohammadi.

2 Department of Nursing, Faculty of Medical Sciences, University of Tarbiat Modares, Tehran, Iran

BACKGROUND:

Discrimination in health care is a common phenomenon whose complete understanding has always been a major concern of health-care systems to control and reduce it. This study aimed to explore the experiences of unintentional discrimination and related factors in health-care providers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:

This qualitative study was conducted with a content analysis approach in 2019. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 13 health-care providers including two physicians, three nursing supervisors, two head nurses, four staff nurses, and two nurse aides in two general hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Participants were selected through purposeful sampling. The obtained data were analyzed by Graneheim and Lundman method.

Three main categories and eight subcategories were obtained from the data analysis: (1) forced discrimination (superiors' pressures and executive orders, occupational concerns, and fear of the superiors); (2) guided discrimination (professional challenges, managers' policymaking, and lack of medical ethics knowledge); and (3) lack of resources (workforce shortage and lack of medical equipment).

CONCLUSION:

The results of this study suggest that health-care providers such as doctors and nurses are unintentionally forced to provide discriminatory care on some occasions. Knowing and managing these unwanted factors can partly counteract unintentional discrimination. Thus, preventing the factors that lead to superiors' pressures and occupational forces and improving the medical ethics knowledge should be considered by health-care managers.

Introduction

The ethical principle of justice concerns closely intertwined concepts such as “justice in health,” “discrimination,” and “equity.” The European Institute of Bioethics defines the concepts of justice and equity in health as follows: “justice in health means the lack of systematic and potentially resolvable differences in one or more aspects of health in a population and economic, social and geographical subgroup.” Accordingly, discrimination is the opposite of justice in health-care provision.[ 1 ] Discrimination in health care means a lack of provision, incomplete provision, or different provision of health care to an individual or group of individuals because of their individual and social characteristics.[ 2 , 3 ] Discrimination in health care is experienced by many in the community, but reported only by some,[ 2 ] most of whom are minorities in terms of race, ethnicity, or certain diseases or conditions, such as physical and mental disability.[ 4 ] Discrimination in health care manifests itself in various forms such as discrimination based on sex,[ 5 ] race,[ 6 ] age,[ 7 ] type of illness, religion,[ 8 ] language,[ 9 ] economic status, and social status,[ 10 ] in all of which individual's access to health services is reduced or is of poor quality.

Piette et al . explained the situation in their study as one-third of adults in the US experience discrimination in health care in their daily lives, and that 7% of them experience it several times.[ 11 ] In a study titled “Experienced discrimination amongst European old citizens,” van den Heuvel states that on an average 26% of respondents aged 62 years sometimes and 11% of them always experience age discrimination.[ 12 ] In a study titled “Discrimination Experience and Health Status in Spanish Immigrants,” Rodríguez-Álvarez (2017) reports that at least one per ten immigrants experienced discrimination in receiving health care. They also stated that these discriminations were not due to the age, sex, and educational level of the immigrants, but merely due to their being an immigrant and ethnic differences.[ 13 ] In another study in the UK in 2010, 1301 people over the age of 50 were surveyed, of whom 23% reported that they had experienced age discrimination in the past year.[ 14 ] In addition, studies conducted in 28 European countries have introduced age as the most significant reason for discrimination so that one-fourth of older adults (aged over 62) have sometimes or often experienced age discrimination.[ 15 ]

Discrimination in health-care provision has significant consequences. In several studies, Wheeler (2014), Rodríguez-Álvarez, and Wofford (2019) examined negative consequences and effects of health-care discrimination in its various forms. In a study titled “”The vicarious effects of discrimination: How partner experiences of discrimination affect individual health “ Wofford (2019) states that the experience of discrimination in care leads to a decrease in the confidence of patients and clients, as well as complications such as being exposed to and experiencing multiple stressors and its specific effects, anxiety, depression, hypertension, and even developing specific health problems and risk factors such as obesity, breast cancer, and substance abuse.[ 12 , 13 , 15 , 16 ]

Various organizations, particularly the WHO, have designed and implemented various strategies to combat discrimination in health care such as continuous education of ethical principles for health-care providers, continuous review of health-care policies, supporting community members, and emphasizing their reporting in case of experiencing discrimination in clinical settings,[ 9 , 17 ] but discrimination continues to occur in health-care provision.[ 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 ] Perhaps, low effectiveness of these policies and strategies can express the fact that they were not based on the full recognition of discrimination dimensions in health care. It is noteworthy that most studies on discrimination are quantitative research on the extent of occurrence and negative consequences, while few have addressed reasons for the emergence and subjective aspect of discriminative behaviors in health-care providers' on the other hand, perceived discrimination is influenced by culture and social factors and is perceived differently by individuals in various societies.[ 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 ]

Hence, a complete understanding of discrimination in providing health care and related factors is essential to adopt effective strategies for controlling and eliminating discrimination in health care. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the process of unintentional discrimination in health-care provision in Iran.

Materials and Methods

This qualitative study aimed to explore the unintentional discrimination process among health-care providers from June to December 2019. Conventional content analysis approach was used according to the objective of this study. This approach is useful for evaluating the perceived experiences of people about a routine phenomenon.[ 26 ]

The research setting consisted of two hospitals in Tehran, Iran, one of which was a public teaching hospital and the other was a private nonacademic one. Both hospitals provide specialty and subspecialty medical services.

Participants

Up-to-date saturation participants were 13 health-care providers who were employed in two general hospitals in Tehran, selected using purposive sampling with the highest diversity in terms of demographic characteristics (age, sex, work experience, etc.). Table 1 shows the demographic characteristics of the participants.

The demographic characteristics of the participants

ICU=Intensive care unit

Data collection

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. First, interviews started with general questions such as “Have you ever discriminated patients during health-care providing? Please explain your experience” followed by subsequent questions based on the interviewee's answers. The time and place of interviews were planned in coordination with the participants at the hospital private room. The interviews took 20–41 min based on the conditions and willingness of the participants.

Data analysis

All interviews were conducted, recorded, transcribed, reviewed, coded, and immediately analyzed by the researcher. The Graneheim and Lundman's[ 27 ] conventional content analysis approach was used for analysis. Based on the content analysis process, initially, each interview was carefully read several times to gain a basic understanding and then important statements were highlighted (to determine the initial codes or semantic units contained in the transcripts of the interview about participants' experience of unintentional discrimination). In the next step, similar semantic units were extracted for semantic clarity and labeled as categories and subcategories. In fact, data were analyzed consistently and concurrently with data collection. The data were added throughout the data collection process until data saturation.

The Strauss and Corbin's (2015) method was used to validate the data, which combines the criteria presented by different researchers. Accordingly, the researcher tried to gain their trust and understand their experiences with long-term engagement, contact, and communication with the participants. Data validation methods were used to eliminate any ambiguity in coding through reviewing transcripts by the participants (member check). To this end, the researcher provided parts of the interviews and codes to the participants to reach the same understanding as the participants. Confirm ability was also checked to confirm the systematic and unbiased collection of data; members' agreement on interviews, codes, and classification of similar codes; and categories and comparison of what the researcher understood and what the participants meant. Data reliability was exercised with immediate transcription, peer check, and review of the whole data.

Ethical considerations

This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of Tehran University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences (Ethics code: IR. USWR. REC.1398.023). In addition, the participants studied and signed the informed consent form for participating in this study. They were assured of the confidentiality of the information, and that the participants could withdraw from the study anytime.

Participants were 13 health-care providers including two physicians, three supervisors, two head nurses, four nurses, and two nurse aids. The age of the participants ranged from 32 to 53 years. Table 1 shows the characteristics of the participants. The findings of this study helped the researcher identify the following three main categories: (1) forced discrimination, (2) guided discrimination, and (3) discrimination related to lack of resources [ Table 2 ].

“Unintentional discrimination” with subcategories and open codes

Category 1 Forced discrimination

Forced discrimination category indicates that health-care providers are forced to discriminate in health-care provision to maintain their jobs or to comply with orders. This category was formed based on the subcategories of (1) superiors' pressures and executive orders, (2) occupational concerns, and (3) fear of the superiors, based on the analysis of initial codes.

Superiors' pressures and executive orders

In the subcategory of superiors' pressures and executive orders, the participants expressed that sometimes they had to discriminate in health-care provision to patients due to the pressure that higher authorities such as the president, manager, or nursing office applied on them. For example, participant = P (12) said:

“It's an order, or the patient is a relative of a colleague and I'm asked to keep the bed beside them vacant, but I'm not doing this for other people. However, these are orders and I have to follow them” (head nurse of the internal surgery ward, 48 years old, 25 years of experience).

P (9) also said: “When the nursing office calls me and recommends a patient and says that I, as the head nurse, should watch over them, what else can I say? I say OK” (head nurse of the surgery ward, 38 years old, 15 years of experience).

P (10) also said:

“Because of frequent calls made by the president for a number of patients admitted to the ICU, I act differently, I spend more time and precision on the patient” (anesthesiologist, 48 years old, 22 years of experience).

Occupational concerns

Another initial subcategory was occupational concerns where participants expressed the reason for discrimination in health-care provision as occupational concerns, such as fear of losing their job and their current position. For example, P (2) said:

“I and the rest of the nurses pay more respect to special and recommended patients; this is ordered by the organization to maintain our job and position. We do this as we have no other choice since it might be hard to find a job somewhere else” (nurse of the gynecology ward, 33 years old, 8 years of experience).

Fear of the superiors

Fear of the superiors was another initial subcategory emerging from the code analysis. The participants noted that sometimes the only reason for which they must provide different care or other forms of communication with the patient is a fear of superiors such as a supervisor or a head nurse. For example, P (8) said:

“I sometimes pay more attention to some patients, I don't know why it is so, it has always been like that, and head nurses always say this to me and other nurse aids. It has been due to our fear of the head nurse or even behavior of some physicians” (nurse aid, 35 years old, 12 years of experience).

Category 2 Guided discrimination

This category refers to the fact that lack of professionalism in medical science majors in Iran, which can be attributed to failure to explain ethical codes as well as the lack of knowledge and training on the principles of medical ethics for physicians, nurses, and other health-care providers, which made health-care providers to have discriminatory behaviors. This category has three subcategories of professional challenges, managers' policymaking, and lack of medical ethics knowledge.

Professional challenges

This subcategory refers to the occupational nature of health-care professions and being involved in their problems. For instance, high workload and fatigue are factors that make service providers exhibit discriminatory behaviors unintentionally as P (11) said:

“If I'm very tired or working at night shifts for several days, I actually do not care much for the patient and neglect many things, or if I'm to do something, I'll do it for some special patients that I have to” (nurse aid, 36 years old, 10 years of experience).

P (7) also said:

“I've seen that doctors or nurses generally attend to patients less at nights and they somewhat discriminate among patients. They don't check the operation site, or they do less suctioning; generally medical and nursing care reduces and maybe it is due to personnel fatigue” (ICU nurse, 33 years old, 10 years of experience).

Managers' policymaking

This subcategory refers to some of the internal policies of health managers that may cause unintentional discrimination among staff by setting certain policies or less supervision. The participants also pointed out that one of the main causes of fighting discrimination is the very managers' will. For example, P (12) said:

“The one at the top of this system must want it to happen; a simple example is visiting patients; some of my colleagues here work in another hospital, too. I went to visit a patient, but they didn't allow me, even though they knew me, they didn't let me visit outside the specified time. The two hospitals are located next to each other and both affiliated to one university, but there is so much difference. It all goes back to the top of the pyramid and management. How much the manager wants to fix the system matters?” (head nurse of the internal surgery ward, 48 years old, 25 years of experience).

Lack of medical ethics knowledge

Lack of knowledge of ethics codes, lack of medical ethics knowledge, and lack of understanding of these principles at university make health-care providers pay less attention to these principles and unintentionally discriminate in the provision of health care. For example, P (3) said:

“Training on ethics was absolutely insufficient. There must be training during medical and nursing courses, but unfortunately it is not so; not even in medical ethics courses, such a problem has become so common among us and all have accepted it. So first and foremost is the teaching and learning of ethical principles at university” (emergency physician, 40 years old, 16 years of experience).

Category 3 Lack of resources

This category refers to the resources needed to provide health services, but when these resources are defective or scarce, the health-care provider is unintentionally forced to discriminate. Two subcategories of discrimination due to workforce shortage and lack of medical equipment emerged from the data analysis.

Workforce shortage

The shortage of physicians, nurses, and other health-care providers unintentionally forces health-care providers to discriminate as it leads to failure in providing the necessary care and even reducing the quality of services. P (9) said:

“As a head nurse, manpower is very important to me; when manpower is low, the quality of work reduces and now if we have some special and recommended patients in the ward, a significant portion of the manpower is dedicated to them and the quality work for other patients decreases and other patients get less attention because we are not enough” (head nurse of the surgery ward, 38 years old, 15 years of experience).

P (6) also said:

“How can I, as a nurse of the internal ward with 10 patients and one of them intubated, handle them all, I have to discriminate, and those who have better conditions will receive more care; I have no choice; we are not enough” (ICU nurse, 33 years old, 8 years of experience).

Lack of medical equipment

Lack of medical equipment also makes physicians and nurses unintentionally discriminate between patients due to access restrictions. For example, P (6) said:

“Healthcare provision is better in ICUs, but lower and poorer in regular wards because a nurse like me has 8–10 patients there and one is intubated, and I don't have time or even monitors to permanently check on them. There, I have to differentiate among patients, and care for a patient only for 2 h in a whole 12-h shift because I don't have the time or the equipment to do it” (ICU nurse, 33 years old, 8 years of experience).

All participants expressed that they had to discriminate in health-care provision in different circumstances. In fact, the participants stated that they are forced to make ethically incorrect decisions and disobey ethical principles unintentionally when providing health care due to reasons such as fear of superiors. In this regard, Kligyte et al . pointed out that fear, worry, and anger can inhibit ethical decision-making. Health-care providers cannot consider justice in their nursing and care plane; finally, patients experience different types of discrimination in health care. In fact, they have no choice and they had to have discriminatory behaviors with patients.[ 28 ]

Furthermore, our findings showed that forced discrimination affects the working environment of physicians, nurses, and other health-care providers, which creates conditions in which they cannot observe the four principles of bioethics, the principle of justice. The participants stated that they discriminate in the provision of health care to patients due to pressure from managers and officials. In fact, it can be argued that the environment in which health-care providers perform their duties can have a positive or negative approach and result in implementing the principles of bioethics. Professional ethics refers to the use of logical and consistent communication, knowledge, clinical skills, emotions, and values in practice. In this regard, Dehghani et al . point out that factors influencing compliance to professional ethics are divided into the following three dimensions: (1) individual dimension (personal characteristics, religious values, and family conditions); (2) organizational dimension (leadership, management, communication with colleagues, rewards and punishment system, organizational culture, etc.); and (3) environmental dimension (economic, social, and cultural). The organizational dimension is more important because it can control and make more changes. Personal ethical decision-making is related to organizational ethical atmosphere, so the viewpoint of manager in health care can change the ethical behaviors of health-care providers.[ 29 ]

Managers' pressure on medical personnel to do things that contradict medical and nursing ethics reflects the ethics that govern an organization such as a hospital. In fact, the ethical behavior of managers in the health-care system is a predictor of observing professional ethics. Kaabomeir et al . quote Douglas emphasizing that if managers and senior executives apply ethics in the workplace, an ethical climate dominates the organization, which can influence other people. According to a survey by the Institute of Business Ethics, managers' adherence to ethics can reduce employees' unethical behavior by up to 50%. Furthermore, ethical decision-making by medical personnel is affected by factors such as fear and anger.[ 30 ]

In addition, our findings showed that some factors such as lack of medical ethics knowledge and lack of professionalism lead health-care providers to discrimination. In fact, these factors occur in the context of medical and nursing care, which reduces the focus on the structure needed to implement ethics. As mentioned in the results, the participants stated that lack of professionalism makes them pay less attention to observing the principle of justice in health-care provision. It is important that professionalism requires the development of and compliance with codes of ethics, as it can be seen in developing countries such as Iran, where medical professions are not completely professionalized, which eventually manifests itself in the form of noncompliance with the principles of medical ethics.[ 31 ] In this regard, Mahajan et al . point out that ethics is an integral part of becoming a medical professional. Furthermore, they emphasized that if the professionalism process is not accomplished properly, graduates would not understand ethical principles and cannot comply with ethical principles such as justice in health care.[ 32 ]

Lack of knowledge about the principles of medical ethics was also mentioned by the participants. In fact, health-care providers such as physicians and nurses that have the highest levels of communication with the patient and need to consider health-care ethics, ultimately provide health-care services that are practically not ethical because they lack the required knowledge. In fact, the lack of training on the principles of bioethics, health justice, leads health-care providers to discriminate in health care. Accordingly, Imran et al . suggest that medical students at general and specialty levels that have not received education on these principles are not capable of making necessary decisions and observing ethical principles such as independence and justice, which affects their professional qualifications, too.[ 33 ] Dehghani et al . pointed out that teaching and learning professional ethics principles at university are among important and effective factors in the formation of nurses' ethical behaviors.[ 29 ]

The importance of learning the principles of bioethics while studying medical sciences and its incorporation is another aspect of this process. As shown by the results, the participants mentioned a lack of education and learning of bioethics principles in universities as a cause of discrimination in providing health care. In this regard, Bostani pointed out that systematic incorporation of bioethics principles in nursing education programs, while familiarizing them with ethical principles, will improve the quality of nursing care, ethical decision-making, and compliance with these principles to provide health care to patients.[ 34 ] Acharya and Shakya (2016 also emphasized that the four principles of bioethics should be emphasized in medical students' curricula in order to respect and maintain patient autonomy, promote justice, and avoid discriminatory behaviors in health.[ 35 ]

Lack of resources, including workforce and medical equipment, was another aspect of unintentional discrimination in health care. As shown by the results, the participants stated that they are forced to unintentionally differentiate between patients and have discriminatory behaviors in health-care delivery when they face challenges such as shortage of doctors and nurses at work.[ 36 , 37 , 38 ] The global challenge of shortage of nurses in recent decades is a major concern for health-care organizations, which leads to physical and psychological harm, job dissatisfaction, burnout, and so forth. What is noticeable here is the effect of lack of resources on bioethical principles governing health-care provision such that this challenge has led to a phenomenon known as moral distress among nurses, which in turn has extensive negative consequences and causes a vicious cycle.[ 39 ] In fact, health-care providers tend to adhere to the ethics of health care based on their professional duty, but the question is how can they provide quality care based on ethics when professionals such as physicians and nurses are not sufficient? In fact, they have no choice but to abandon some of these ethical principles when providing health care because under the present conditions, physical care is prioritized and ethical principles such as justice in care are less attended to.

Different articles have been conducted on health-care discrimination, but they are quantitative, and we cannot survey the main problems about discrimination in health care. This study was a qualitative article, so we could detect the main category of unintentional discrimination in health care. According to these findings, we can design an effective model for controlling discrimination in health care.

Every article has some limitations, so the authors reiterate that this study was based on Iranian culture and health-care system, so the results cannot be generalized to other countries, and it is recommended that similar studies be conducted in other countries.

The findings of this study showed three categories of unintentional discrimination including forced discrimination, guided discrimination, and lack of resources. In this study, the participants emphasized that they unintentionally discriminate health-care provision to patients due to various factors, including managers' pressure and lack of resources, as well as professional challenges such as lack of medical ethics knowledge. This study could clarify the concept of discrimination in health care, and it is recommended that health-care managers use the results of this study to plan and implement measures to control and reduce discrimination in health care.

Financial support and sponsorship

Conflicts of interest.

There are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

This study was extracted from a Ph.D. thesis in nursing approved on May 29, 2019, in Tehran University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences. The researchers would like to sincerely thank all participants in this study including physicians, nurses, and nurse aids.

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

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

ISSN : 2040-7149

Article publication date: 1 February 2023

Issue publication date: 18 December 2023

While only one aspect of fulfilling equal rights, effectively addressing workplace discrimination is integral to creating economies, and countries, that allow for everyone's full and equal participation.

Design/methodology/approach

Labor, anti-discrimination, and other relevant pieces of legislation were identified through the International Labor Organization's NATLEX database, supplemented with legislation identified through country websites. For each country, two researchers independently coded legislation and answered questions about key policy features. Systematic quality checks and outlier verifications were conducted.

More than 1 in 5 countries do not explicitly prohibit racial discrimination in employment. 54 countries fail to prohibit unequal pay based on race. 107 countries prohibit racial and/or ethnic discrimination but do not explicitly require employers to take preventive measures against discrimination. The gaps are even larger with respect to multiple and intersectional discrimination. 112 countries fail to prohibit discrimination based on both migration status and race and/or ethnicity; 103 fail to do so for foreign national origin and race and/or ethnicity.

Practical implications

Both recent and decades-old international treaties and agreements require every country globally to uphold equal rights regardless of race. However, specific national legislation that operationalizes these commitments and prohibits discrimination in the workplace is essential to their impact. This research highlights progress and gaps that must be addressed.

Originality/value

This is the first study to measure legal protections against employment discrimination based on race and ethnicity in all 193 UN countries. This study also examines protection in all countries from discrimination on the basis of characteristics that have been used in a number of settings as a proxy for racial/ethnic discrimination and exclusion, including SES, migration status, and religion.

• Discrimination
• Migration status

Heymann, J. , Varvaro-Toney, S. , Raub, A. , Kabir, F. and Sprague, A. (2023), "Race, ethnicity, and discrimination at work: a new analysis of legal protections and gaps in all 193 UN countries", Equality, Diversity and Inclusion , Vol. 42 No. 9, pp. 16-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-01-2022-0027

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2023, Jody Heymann, Sheleana Varvaro-Toney, Amy Raub, Firooz Kabir and Aleta Sprague

Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Work plays a fundamental role in shaping the conditions of people's lives. Earnings from employment are the predominant source of income for most people; income in turn shapes access to a wide range of necessities including housing, transportation, and food, as well as non-essentials that impact quality of life and access to opportunities. In many countries where health insurance is partial or incomplete, work shapes access to healthcare. And by affecting where families live and whether caregivers can take time off to meet the developmental needs of children, the availability and conditions of work can have profound impacts on child development and education. Likewise, as adults age, as well as at the end of life, work histories can and do shape retirement income in most countries, and working conditions influence the ability of adults to care for aging family members.

As a result, when discrimination impedes work opportunities or results in loss of income, the consequences affect not only the quality and equality of work lives, but also of many other spheres of life. Moreover, when certain groups of workers routinely face bias in the workplace, this discrimination widens other inequalities in the economy, with ripple effects that have impacts on health, housing, children's access to quality education, and equal rights more broadly.

Given these vast and intergenerational impacts, the extent and persistence of workplace discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity worldwide—which occurs at each stage of employment, including hiring, promotions, demotions, pay, working conditions, and terminations—represents a significant threat to both individual households and societies as a whole, as well as a clear violation of fundamental human rights. Moreover, studies in countries around the world have documented how employment discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity commonly intersects with discrimination based on migration status, socioeconomic status, gender, and other characteristics, compounding other forms of inequality. While only one aspect of fulfilling equal rights, effectively addressing workplace discrimination is integral to creating economies, and countries, that allow for everyone's full and equal participation.

In this article, we review the research evidence on employment discrimination based on race and on the impact of anti-discrimination legislation, and then present the methods and results of the first study of anti-discrimination protections in all 193 UN countries.

Discrimination in hiring

A wide range of studies have demonstrated racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring, including studies in which researchers submit fictitious CVs and applications that reflect similar credentials and experience, but that vary with respect to photos, names, and/or experiences suggestive of different racial or ethnic identities. These “correspondence studies,” which improved on prior methods of testing for racial discrimination by making candidates substantively identical except for markers of race/ethnicity ( Bertrand and Duflo, 2017 ), find that presumed race/ethnicity influences the likelihood that a particular candidate receives an invitation to interview, with those representing historically marginalized racial or ethnic groups consistently receiving fewer callbacks ( Baert, 2018 ).

Other research approaches include direct interviews with hiring managers and simulations in which study participants rate the strength of hypothetical job candidates based on their photos and descriptions of their experience and characteristics where, again, the principal aspect varied is race/ethnicity, either on its own or together with intersectional characteristics like migration status or gender.

These research approaches also document the persistence of discrimination in hiring across jobs and geographies. For example, research in Nigeria found that managers of both public and private organizations were more likely to hire applicants from their own ethnic group ( Adisa et al. , 2017 ). A study spanning five European countries—Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom—demonstrated discrimination in the hiring of Black and Middle Eastern men ( Di Stasio and Larsen, 2020 ).

Discrimination based on common proxies for race or ethnicity can likewise shape job prospects. In Canada, for example, migrants from sub-Saharan Africa report that their accents can be a barrier to becoming employed and having career mobility ( Creese, 2010 ), while in the US, numerous court cases have illustrated how Black women commonly face barriers to employment because their natural hairstyles are found to violate “neutral” grooming codes ( Greene, 2017 ).

Discrimination is also often intersectional. In Germany, a 2020 study found that women with Turkish names were less likely than those with German names to receive interview invitations, and this gap widened further for women wearing headscarves ( Weichselbaumer, 2020 ). Similarly, in a Mexico study, both marital status and skin color affected women's chance of receiving an interview ( Arceo-Gomez and Campos-Vasquez, 2014 ). In Belgium, women from minority ethnic groups were less likely to be considered for a “high-cognitive demanding job” than either native women or minority ethnic men ( Derous and Pepermans, 2019 ).

Discrimination in promotions

Studies have also documented racial and ethnic discrimination in promotions across professions, from police forces to law firms to universities ( Tomlinson, 2019 ; Zempi, 2020 ). From Finland to South Africa to the United Kingdom and the United States, workers from marginalized racial and ethnic groups report discrimination in promotion, consistent with the research evidence based on multilevel multivariate studies of discrimination, as well as based on implicit bias testing of supervisors ( Hatch et al. , 2016 ; Mayiya et al. , 2019 ; Stalker, 1994 ; Yu, 2020 ; Zempi, 2020 ). In Canada, research has documented that visible minorities have less upward mobility even after controlling for education, work experience, time with the employer, and other factors ( Javdani, 2020 ), including both supply- and demand-side factors ( Javdani and McGee, 2018 ; Yap, 2010 ; Yap and Konrad, 2009 ).

Aside from direct discrimination in promotions, employer practices that evaluate employee conduct differently or otherwise deny opportunities for professional advancement based on race or ethnicity can affect opportunities within the workplace. For example, a study that experimentally changed the race/ethnicity of an employee in a photo while asking study participants to evaluate their performance demonstrated that simple acts such as being late for work led to a significantly greater negative impact on the appraisal of hypothetical employees when the photo showed a Black or Latinx employee than when the photo showed a white employee ( Luksyte et al. , 2013 ). Visible minorities are also less likely to receive training opportunities that can influence upward mobility in the labor force ( Dostie and Javdani, 2020 ).

Discrimination in terminations

Both direct discrimination by employers and structural discrimination that cuts across economies can make workers from marginalized racial and ethnic groups more vulnerable to terminations. For example, studies have found that during economic downturns, immigrants and workers from historically marginalized racial and ethnic groups face heightened risks of labor market discrimination and job loss ( Couch and Fairlie, 2010 ; Lessem and Nakajima, 2019 ). Moreover, the consequences of past discrimination and exclusion from economic opportunities mean that workers from underrepresented groups are less likely to have seniority within a given organization or company. As a result, in addition to direct racial/ethnic discrimination that may lead to higher rates of termination, “last hired, first fired” policies can result in indirect discrimination against workers from historically excluded groups.

Impacts of discrimination in hiring, job positions, and promotions on pay inequality

Discrimination in hiring can impact initial salaries and level and type of starting position. When individuals are hired into jobs below their skill level because of bias based on race and ethnicity, they earn less than they would have earned had there been no discrimination ( Coleman, 2003 ). Likewise, when discrimination results in the overrepresentation of workers from historically marginalized racial/ethnic groups in limited employment capacities, including temporary or seasonal jobs, gaps in both pay and benefits further widen. Survey research across 30 European countries showed that even after controlling for education, experience, occupation, and other categories, racial and ethnic minorities were more likely to end up in jobs where their skills were underutilized, leading to lower wages than if they were in a position more matched to their skills and offering reduced pathways for advancement ( Rafferty, 2020 ). In Chile, qualitative research has found that Peruvian migrants simultaneously experience limited employment trajectory due to their external migrant status alongside racialization by local Chileans who perceive them to be more fit for low-status and low-income positions due to assumptions about their physical and cultural traits ( Mora and Undurraga, 2013 ).

Direct pay discrimination

Even for the same job position, the “unexplained” wage differential after taking experience into account gives an indication of the amount of the wage differential that could be due to discrimination and bias. One-half to two-thirds of wage differences across racial and ethnic groups in some studies have been estimated to be due to bias ( Drydakis, 2012 ; Piazzalunga, 2015 ). While the data clearly demonstrates the existence of bias and discrimination in pay against specific groups in a range of countries, there has not been a comprehensive look across countries and racial/ethnic groups to document in detail when and where the wage gaps are greatest and lowest, before and after taking into account the impact of bias throughout the work lifecourse.

The documented and potential impacts of national laws addressing discrimination

Individual countries that have passed antidiscrimination laws have seen improvements including greater equality in hiring and lowering of wage disparities ( Leck et al. , 1995 ). While antidiscrimination laws alone do not eliminate discrimination in hiring, pay, promotions, or terminations, studies both across countries and across populations have demonstrated that antidiscrimination laws can make a difference. In Canada, for example, studies of the Employment Equity Act found that the share of visible minorities who were employed in the private sector increased to much closer to the percentage of the population following the law's adoption ( Agocs, 2002 ; Leck and Saunders, 1992 ). In the United States, studies have found that antidiscrimination laws contributed to wage and income increases for Black workers ( Collins, 2003 ; Donohue and Heckman, 1991 ) and a narrowing of the racial/ethnic pay gap ( Chay, 1998 ).

These findings on laws' impacts on employment outcomes by race parallel those observed for other groups of marginalized workers. For example, one study of 141 countries found that laws prohibiting gender discrimination in employment increased women's labor force participation in formal jobs ( del Mar Alonso-Almeida, 2014 ), while in the UK, legislation guaranteeing equal pay and non-discrimination in employment on the basis of sex resulted in a 19.4% increase in women's earnings and a 17% increase in women's employment rates relative to men's ( Zabalza and Zafiris, 1985 ). Moreover, explicitly prohibiting all forms of workplace discrimination matters to norms. In addition to their practical or applied value, laws prohibiting discrimination have important expressive value that can shape workplace expectations as well as societal views of equality more broadly, with the potential to affect rates of both explicit and implicit bias ( Sunstein, 1996 ). At the same time, the past several decades of antidiscrimination law have revealed important gaps to address. First, as many of the studies cited in the previous section illustrated, racial and ethnic discrimination commonly co-occurs with discrimination based on migration status, foreign national origin, social class, and other characteristics, highlighting the cumulative and often intersectional impacts of key facets of identity on work-related experiences around the world. Clearly banning all common grounds of discrimination, including those used as proxies for race or ethnicity or that commonly intersect with race or ethnicity, is a critical first step.

Second, prohibitions of indirect discrimination can offer important protection against racial/ethnic discrimination, including in instances where discrimination based on an unprotected ground has disparate impacts on the basis of race or ethnicity. This is true both for common grounds of discrimination that would ideally be explicitly covered by domestic labor laws (as they are by international treaties, e.g. national origin) ( Demetriou, 2016 ), as well as proxies for racial/ethnic discrimination that are not generally addressed on their own (e.g. accents and hairstyles) ( Justesen, 2016 ). In contrast, when discrimination laws take an overly formal approach to discrimination that only covers acts that were direct or intentional, they fail to account for the extensive evidence demonstrating that policies and practices that are racially neutral on their face may have disproportionate consequences for workers from historically marginalized groups.

Third and finally, while protections against employment discrimination are essential, more attention must be paid to implementation. While a range of actions are needed, evidence shows that having legal protections in place against retaliation may increase reporting rates by reassuring workers that their careers will be protected if they report discrimination ( Bergman et al. , 2002 ; Gorod, 2007 ; Keenan, 1990 ; Pillay et al. , 2018 ).

This is the first study to examine legislation in all 193 UN countries to map the extent to which each country in the world has protections against racial and ethnic discrimination in hiring, promotions, training, demotions, and terminations, as well as whether they proactively support implementation through clear legislative prohibitions of retaliation for reporting. Further, we examine to what extent countries not only address direct discrimination based on race/ethnicity, but also indirect racial/ethnic discrimination and/or direct discrimination based on grounds that can serve as proxies depending on the historical and societal context for racial discrimination, including religion, migration status, and socioeconomic status. Further, we highlight examples where countries explicitly address intersectionality. Finally, we examine whether there were gains over the past five years in the number of countries that are prohibiting each type of discrimination.

Methodology

Data source.

We constructed a database of prohibitions against discrimination in private sector labor in all 193 UN member states as of January 2021. Labor, anti-discrimination, and other relevant pieces of legislation were identified through the International Labor Organization's NATLEX database, supplemented with legislation identified through country websites. A coding framework was developed to systematically capture key policy features. This coding framework was reviewed by researchers, lawyers, and other leaders working on employment discrimination and tested on a subset of countries before database coding commenced.

For each country and protected characteristic studied, two researchers independently read legislation in its original language or a translation and used the coding framework to assess whether legislation specifically prohibited discrimination in each aspect of work or broadly, whether there were any exceptions to prohibitions of discrimination based on employer characteristics, and whether there were specific provisions in place to support effective implementation. In countries where anti-discrimination protections are legislated subnationally, the lowest level of protection across states or provinces was captured. Answers were then reconciled to minimize human error. When the two researchers could not arrive at an agreement based on the codebook framework, the full coding team met to discuss, and the coding framework was updated to reflect the decision. When updates were made, countries that had already been coded were checked for consistency with the update.

Once coding was complete, systematic quality checks were conducted of variables that proved challenging for researchers during the coding process. Randomized quality checks were conducted of variables that were more straightforward, checking first twenty countries to ensure no errors were identified and a larger subset of countries if there were errors. Finally, outlier verifications globally and by region or country income level were conducted for all variables. In order to assess whether legislative provisions have strengthened over time, similar methods were used to construct measures of laws in place as of August 2016.

Strength of prohibitions of discrimination

We examined legislation across six areas: hiring, pay, training, promotions and/or demotions, termination, and harassment. For each area, we assessed the strength of protection against racial and ethnic discrimination. We classified countries as having a “specific prohibition of racial or ethnic discrimination” if legislation either: 1) explicitly addressed racial and ethnic discrimination in that aspect of work (“racial discrimination in hiring is prohibited”); or 2) broadly prohibited racial discrimination at work (“there shall be no discrimination at work based on race”) and guaranteed equality in the specific area (“no one shall be discriminated against in hiring decisions”). For equal pay, we further distinguished between countries that guaranteed equal pay for equal work and those that had a stronger provision guaranteeing equal pay for work of equal value which would prohibit differences in pay when there is occupational segregation.

Countries were classified as having a “broad prohibition of racial or ethnic discrimination” if legislation broadly prohibited discrimination based on race or ethnicity, but did not address specific aspects of work. Countries were coded as having a “general prohibition of discrimination” if legislation did not explicitly address race or ethnicity but banned discrimination in an aspect of work for all workers. “No explicit prohibition” denotes when legislation did not take any of the approaches above. We separately analyzed whether prohibitions of discrimination included indirect discrimination, which would protect against seemingly neutral practices or criteria that have disparate impacts across race and/or ethnicity.

Intersecting characteristics

In many countries racial and/or ethnic discrimination is deeply intertwined with other characteristics, including social class, migration status, foreign national origin, and religion. Accordingly, we assessed whether laws prohibit discrimination based on both race and/or ethnicity and these intersecting characteristics.

Employer responsibilities

We assessed whether legislation required employers to take measures to prevent racial or ethnic discrimination in the workplace. In doing so, we distinguished between legislation that made it a general responsibility and legislation that outlined specific steps for employers to take. These specific prevention steps included requirements to create a code of conduct to prevent racial discrimination, establish disciplinary procedures, raise awareness of anti-discrimination laws, or conduct trainings to prevent discrimination.

Prohibitions of retaliation

To capture the extent to which provisions effectively covered the range of forms that retaliation can take, we coded the protections for individuals who reported discrimination, filed a complaint, or initiated litigation (any adverse action, disciplinary action, or retaliatory dismissal only) and whether prohibitions of retaliation covered all workers participating in the investigation.

Firm-based exceptions

In some countries, prohibitions of discrimination are weakened by provisions that exempt certain employers. We captured exceptions that broadly applied to prohibitions of discrimination or specifically in different aspects of work based on firm type for small businesses, charities and non-profits, and religious organizations.

All analyses were conducted using Stata MP 14.2. Differences were assessed by region using the Pearson's chi-square statistics. Region was categorized according to the World Bank's country and lending groups as of 2020 [ 1 ].

Globally, 153 countries prohibited at least some form of racial and/or ethnic discrimination at work in 2021, a modest increase from 148 countries in 2016 ( Figure 1 ). Three of the countries introducing these new prohibitions were in Sub-Saharan Africa (Mali, South Sudan, and Zambia), one in Europe (Iceland), and one in the South Pacific (Tuvalu). An additional five countries expanded existing prohibitions of racial and/or ethnic discrimination either to broadly prohibit discrimination at work in addition to specific prohibitions in certain areas (Barbados and Honduras) or to comprehensively cover discrimination at work in all areas, as well as indirect racial and/or ethnic discrimination (Andorra, Burundi, and Sao Tome and Principe).

Gaps in prohibitions are found in every region of the world. Countries in the Americas were the most likely to prohibit at least some form of racial discrimination at work, followed closely by Europe and Central Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In each of these regions, only ten percent or fewer of countries lacked at least some form of prohibition. In contrast, a majority of countries lack prohibitions of racial discrimination in East Asia and Pacific and South Asia ( Figure 2 ). Differences were statistically significant between these two regions and the three regions with the highest levels of prohibitions ( p  < 0.01).

In 2016, 107 countries had a law that explicitly prohibited race-based discrimination in hiring. That number increased to 115 countries in 2021 (see Figure 2 ). An additional 27 countries in 2016 and 29 countries in 2021 had either a broad prohibition of race discrimination or a general prohibition of discrimination in hiring. Prohibitions of racial/ethnic discrimination in hiring were most common in Europe and Central Asia (91%) followed by sub-Saharan Africa (62%). In all other regions, fewer than half of countries prohibited racial discrimination in hiring ( Figure 3 ).

Training and promotions/demotions

Eighty countries in 2016 and 88 countries in 2021 prohibited discrimination based on race in training. Eighty-three countries in 2016 prohibited discrimination in promotions and demotions. In 2021, this number increased to 90 countries.

While less than three-quarters of countries prohibited racial discrimination in training in Europe and Central Asia (74%), these prohibitions were still more common than in every other region. Similar trends were found for promotions and/or demotions.

The number of countries guaranteeing equal pay for work of equal value, increased from 34 in 2016 to 41 in 2021. Overall, including guarantees both of equal pay for work of equal value and equal pay for equal work, 91 countries in 2016 and 96 countries in 2021 guaranteed equal pay across racial and ethnic groups. More countries in Europe and Central Asia (77%) prohibited racial discrimination in pay than those in sub-Saharan Africa (56%), the Middle East and North Africa (27%), and South Asia (27%).

Terminations

In 2016, 106 countries prohibited racial discrimination in terminating employment. That number increased to 112 countries in 2021. Prohibitions of racial/ethnic discrimination in terminations were most common in Europe and Central Asia (74%), Sub-Saharan Africa (71%), and the Americas (60%). In contrast, less than a third of countries prohibited racial discrimination in terminations in East Asia and Pacific (30%) and South Asia (25%).

Only 66 countries explicitly prohibited workplace harassment based on race/ethnicity in 2016. By 2021, that number had increased to 72. Only a minority of countries prohibited racial and/or ethnic harassment in all regions except Europe and Central Asia.

Indirect discrimination

Sixty-three countries prohibited indirect discrimination based on race and/or ethnicity in 2016, increasing to 71 countries in 2021. Only a third of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a fifth of those in East Asia and Pacific and the Americas, and an eighth of those in South Asia explicitly addressed indirect racial/ethnic discrimination. No countries in the Middle East and North Africa did so.

Intertwined, multiple and intersectional discrimination

Prohibitions of discrimination based on both race and/or ethnicity and religion were widespread: 151 countries prohibited at least some aspect of workplace discrimination based on both characteristics in 2021. However, only 117 countries prohibited at least some aspect of workplace discrimination based on both race and/or ethnicity and social class. Even fewer prohibited discrimination based on both race and/or ethnicity and foreign national origin (90 countries) or migration status (81 countries).

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa were most likely to prohibit discrimination based on race and social class, as well as discrimination based on race and foreign national origin. While prohibitions of racial discrimination and religion, social class, or foreign national origin were comparatively high in the Americas, prohibitions of discrimination based on migration status were markedly lower. While nearly two-thirds of countries in Europe and Central Asia addressed migration status alongside race, only half prohibited discrimination based on foreign national origin ( Figure 4 ).

Finally, a minority of countries explicitly addressed the concepts of intersectionality or multiple discrimination in their discrimination legislation. Kenya's National Gender and Equality Commission Act recognizes intersectionality in defining marginalized groups to be people “disadvantaged by discrimination on one or more of the grounds in Article 27(4) of the Constitution” which includes “race, sex, pregnancy, marital status, health status, ethnic or social origin, colour, age, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, dress, language or birth” ( 2012 ). Australia's Racial Discrimination Act prohibits “acts done for 2 or more reasons” where “one of the reasons is the race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin of a person” ( 1975 ). In Macedonia, the Law on Prevention of and Protection Against Discrimination defines multiple discrimination to be a severe form of discrimination ( 2010 ).

Only a smaller minority of countries (38) took the additional step of requiring employers to take one or more specific measures to prevent racial discrimination. An additional 8 countries had general language requiring employers to take preventative steps, without specifying what those steps would look like.

Protections in the event of discrimination

In the event that discrimination occurred and employees filed a report or initiated litigation, a modest majority of countries took the important step of prohibiting retaliation against the employee who filed the complaint. Seventy-eight countries prohibited employers from retaliating in any way, an additional 7 prohibited harassment or any disciplinary action, and 26 only prohibited dismissing the employee ( Table 1 ). A similar number of countries (76) protected employees who participated in investigations from being retaliated against.

Are any employers exempt?

When countries had laws in place prohibiting discrimination, they overwhelmingly applied to all employers. In rare cases small businesses were exempt, including in 5 countries in the case of hiring, 4 countries in the case of training and terminations, and 3 countries in the case of pay and promotions and demotions ( Table 2 ). Charities and nonprofits had similarly uncommon exemptions. The group that was most frequently exempted from these prohibitions of racial discrimination were religious organizations. Fourteen countries exempted religious organizations from bans on discriminations based on race in hiring, training, and terminations, 13 exempted religious organizations in terms of racial discrimination in promotions and demotions, and 9 in the case of pay.

Around the world there has been an explosion of demonstrations and attention to the critical issue of racial discrimination over the past two years, building on the many decades of activism urging action on racial injustices that came before. And while catalyzed by state violence, these recent demonstrations also clearly took aim at the deeply entrenched economic disparities across race that persist across countries, which were on full display as workers from marginalized racial and ethnic groups lost jobs in historic numbers two months into the pandemic.

In response, governments and companies worldwide pledged action. Ensuring that discrimination is clearly prohibited in every country is an essential first step both for changing norms and attitudes and for giving people who are discriminated against more tools to combat the discrimination. Modest progress has been made over the past five years in increasing guarantees of equality, regardless of race and ethnicity, around the world. Between 2016 and 2021, the number of countries legally prohibiting racial and ethnic discrimination in the workplace increased and the strength of provisions improved. Eight more countries prohibited discrimination in hiring and 6 more in terminations. Seven more countries guaranteed equal pay for work of equal value based on race. Moreover, 8 more countries prohibited indirect discrimination based on race and ethnicity.

Yet unconscionable gaps remain. More than 1 in 5 countries have no prohibition of workplace discrimination based on race. Moreover, more than 1 in 4 countries, 54 in total, have no prohibition against racial discrimination in pay. Furthermore, more than a dozen countries provide for exceptions to the prohibition of racial discrimination for religious organizations.

Many countries also fail to offer adequate legal protection against both direct racial discrimination and other forms of discrimination that often occur simultaneously, have disparate impacts on the basis of race, and/or serve as proxies for racial discrimination. For example, in many countries around the world, marginalized racial and ethnic groups are also disproportionately poor due to historic and ongoing economic exclusion. In settings where racial and ethnic discrimination is prohibited but social class-based discrimination remains allowed, class-based discrimination can be used to practically discriminate based on race and ethnicity, particularly if indirect discrimination is likewise unaddressed in the law. Yet 76 countries fail to prohibit discrimination based on both social class and race and/or ethnicity; 121 lack protections against indirect discrimination; and 58 countries lack either protection.

Similarly, while discrimination based both on race/ethnicity and migration status is pervasive, many countries lack comprehensive protections addressing these and related grounds. The evidence illustrating why stronger laws are needed is compelling. For example, a study on labor force participation in Western Europe found that migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia earned over 20% less income than Western European internal migrants. Compared to internal Western European migrants, external migrants from MENA and sub-Saharan Africa regions were also less likely to be employed and part of the labor force in Europe ( Kislev, 2017 ). National laws that formally and explicitly prohibit multiple forms of discrimination may help protect more individuals and reduce inequalities in employment opportunities. Yet, 112 countries fail to prohibit discrimination based on both migration status and race and/or ethnicity and 103 fail to do so for foreign national origin and race and/or ethnicity.

Finally, even when legal protections are in place, it is crucial that there are both prevention and enforcement mechanisms. 107 countries prohibited racial and ethnic discrimination but did not place any explicit requirements on employers to try to prevent discrimination. Only 38 countries required employers to take specific steps and only an additional 8 required employers generally to work towards prevention.

The critical need to accelerate progress

The significant overall gaps in protections, alongside the findings that the expansion over the past five years of laws prohibiting racial discrimination at work has been slow, underscores the need to accelerate the pace of change on legal reforms—as a matter of human rights, an important determinant of individual and household incomes, and a prerequisite for countries to reach their full potential. Ensuring equal opportunities in employment on the basis of race and ethnicity has vast implications for individuals, families, and their broader communities. A significant body of literature has documented how access to employment, job quality, and adequate income shape mental and physical health, overall life satisfaction, and the ability to meet material needs ( Calvo et al ., 2015 ; Murphy and Athansou, 1999 ). When work opportunities are unevenly distributed by race due to both individual and structural discrimination, these disparities drive broader inequalities.

Moreover, all countries have agreed to do so. The Sustainable Development Goals, adopted by all UN member states in 2015, commit governments to “empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status” and “[e]nsure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard” ( United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 2015 ). By adopting the SDGs, countries worldwide agreed to realize these commitments by 2030. To meet that timeline, accelerating the pace of change on fundamental anti-discrimination protections is essential.

This builds on a long history of international agreements guaranteeing equal rights regardless of race or ethnicity, including in the field of employment. Many of these have been in place for decades. Foremost among them is the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination ( United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1965 ), which has been ratified by 182 countries ( United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2021c ), declares that States Parties have a duty to “prohibit and to eliminate racial discrimination in all its forms and to guarantee the right of everyone, without distinction as to race, colour, or national or ethnic origin, to equality before the law, notably in the enjoyment of (…) The rights to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work, to protection against unemployment, to equal pay for equal work, to just and favourable remuneration” ( United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1965 ).

In fact, nearly every major global human rights agreement commits countries to treating all people equally regardless of race or ethnicity. These include, among others, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted as the first global agreement of the United Nations and considered binding on all countries ( United Nations General Assembly, 1948 ), the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, a binding treaty ratified by 171 countries ( United Nations General Assembly, 1966 ; United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 2021b ), and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by 173 countries ( United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1966 , 2021a ).

Finally, beyond its importance to individuals, families, and communities and deep intrinsic value as a matter of human rights, ending racial discrimination in the labor market has significant implications for economies and companies. For example, in the US alone, estimates from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco find that closing the racial gaps in employment-to-population ratios between 1990 and 2019 would have boosted 2019 GDP by over $150 billion ( Buckman et al. , 2021 ), while other research has forecast that closing the racial earnings gap by 2050 would boost GDP by 22% ( Turner, 2018 ). Likewise, a significant body of evidence demonstrates that greater racial and ethnic diversity within companies, including on boards, improves their financial performance and degree of innovation ( Erhardt et al. , 2003 ; Herring, 2009 ; Cheong and Sinnakkannu, 2014 ; Thomas et al. , 2016 ; Hunt et al. , 2018 ). For example, a study of 492 firms found a strong relationship between ethnic and linguistic diversity and total revenue, dividends, sales and productivity ( Churchill, 2019 ). Particularly as more companies work and hire trans-nationally, the extent to which laws in all countries prohibit racial and ethnic discrimination at work matters to overall performance.

Research limitations and the need for a broader research agenda on policies and outcomes

While this study provides an important first look at prohibitions against racial and ethnic discrimination at work in all the world's countries, it has important limitations. This study did not quantify laws related to intersectional discrimination, including, among others, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, and gender identity. Yet as past scholarship and case law have shown, addressing each individual basis for discrimination still may not be enough to reach the unique forms of discrimination that arise when multiple grounds of discrimination intersect, particularly if workers are required to prove each of their discrimination claims discretely and sequentially. Explicit protections against intersectional discrimination, and judiciaries willing and trained to apply them, may be needed ( Crenshaw, 1989 ; Fredman, 2016 ).

Future research should also examine prohibitions of discrimination in working conditions, given the evidence of inequalities. For example, research has shown that non-Hispanic Black workers and foreign-born Hispanic workers are disproportionately hired into jobs with the higher injury risk and increased prevalence of work-related disability ( Seabury et al. , 2017 ). Another study on COVID-19 job exposures found that Latinx and Black frontline workers were overrepresented in lower status occupations associated with higher risk and less adequate COVID-19 protections, contributing to the higher prevalence of infection in these populations ( Goldman et al. , 2021 ).

Further, we need to measure laws that reduce bias in informal as well as formal mechanisms that play a large role in the recruitment, hiring, and promotion processes, as well as in determining working conditions. Evidence has shown social networks and informal relationships can not only impact recruitment, but also can contribute to inequities in salary negotiations and mentorship at the hiring stage ( Seidel et al. , 2000 ; Spafford et al. , 2006 ).

These expansions on the law and policy data presented here should be part of a broader research agenda on racial equity in the global labor market that examines not only which laws and policies are in place but what impacts they are having. As with other policy areas, developing longitudinal quantitative, globally comparative measures of anti-discrimination laws helps make it possible for researchers to rigorously analyze the relationship between policy change and outcomes, producing actionable evidence about “what works” across countries ( Raub et al. , 2022 ). However, even with the new policy data we have developed, improvements in outcomes data will be essential to measure the impact globally of advances and legal gaps. Globally comparative data on experiences of racial discrimination across countries which is essential for measuring the impact of legal change globally has been limited to date for several reasons including the wide range across countries of who suffers racial and ethnic discrimination and the variability of country willingness to collect data.

Addressing discrimination: a global responsibility

While the workplace is only one location where racial and ethnic discrimination occurs, it is a crucial one. Ensuring equal opportunity to be hired and equal treatment in pay, working conditions, and promotions together influences whether individuals can lead full work lives, contribute to household income, and not only meet basic needs but also invest in the future of their families and communities. Moreover, global agreements have committed countries around the world to combatting discrimination based on race and ethnicity, including in the specific context of employment.

For these international instruments to have full impact, however, specific country-level legislation that operationalizes their commitments and prohibits discrimination in the workplace is essential. To accelerate progress toward ending racial and ethnic discrimination in employment worldwide—a basic human right—we need to monitor the steps countries are taking to address and eliminate discrimination in all aspects of work, including hiring, promotion, pay, and terminations. While legal guarantees are not enough—and norm change, leadership, and social movements are likewise critical to successfully eliminating discrimination both at work and more broadly—clear stipulations that companies are not allowed to discriminate are essential, as are strong and regularly updated accountability mechanisms.

Do countries prohibit racial and/or ethnic discrimination in all aspects of work?

Number of countries prohibiting racial and/or ethnic discrimination at work by aspect of work and year

Percentage of countries prohibiting racial and/or ethnic discrimination at work by region and aspect of work

Number of countries prohibiting at least some discrimination at work based on race and/or ethnicity and intersecting characteristics by region

Countries with prohibitions of retaliation against those reporting discrimination

Countries with exceptions to prohibitions of racial and/or ethnic discrimination

The World Bank's (WB) regional classifications can be found here: https://datahelpdesk.worldbank.org/knowledgebase/articles/906519-world-bank-country-and-lending-groups . While Malta is classified as part of the Middle East and North Africa by the WB, it is also a member of the European Union (EU) and therefore more likely to have legislation reflecting the EU's principles and directives. Thus, we classified Malta as a part of Europe and Central Asia. All other countries retained their WB classifications.

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The authors are grateful for funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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Supreme Court Hands Federal Worker Major Win In Age Discrimination Case

Nina Totenberg

The Supreme Court ruled in cases involving age discrimination and traffic stops. Mark Sherman/AP hide caption

The Supreme Court ruled in cases involving age discrimination and traffic stops.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with older federal workers on Monday, making it easier for those over 40 to sue for age discrimination.

The 8-to-1 ruling rejected a Trump administration position that sought to dramatically limit the legal recourse available to federal workers.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority , noted that federal law "demands that personnel actions be untainted by any consideration of age." So if age were a factor here as alleged, the process was not free from discrimination. But, he said, the relief available to individuals who have been discriminated against may be different, depending on the circumstances. If age discrimination was one of the factors during the process, but not the only factor, then employees may not be entitled to damages and back pay, but they are entitled to prospective relief, like eligibility for a promotional exam, or for a job promotion.

Chief Justice Roberts: Is 'OK, Boomer' Evidence Of Age Discrimination?

The case was brought by Noris Babb, a clinical pharmacist who worked for the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Bay Pines, Fla., for 16 years. In that time, she qualified to practice disease management, saw patients and prescribed medication without consulting a physician. And she had received consistently high marks for performance, according to her lawyers.

Yet Babb says that beginning about 10 years ago, when she was in her late 40s, she and other women older than 45 found they were not getting newly classified advanced positions that paid more money. Instead, the women said, those jobs went to people in their 30s, most of them men.

Several of the women filed their own complaints against the VA, which Babb supported. As a result, she alleges in her own suit, the VA retaliated against her, and subjected her to systematic discrimination by denying her eligibility for promotions, and training opportunities, all in an atmosphere where supervisors made a range of age-related comments.

A federal district court judge initially threw out Babb's suit, declaring that she had failed to prove that her age was only reason for these personnel actions. The Trump Administration supported that ruling, and in doing so clashed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

But on Monday the court sided with Babb and the EEOC, not the Trump administration. The justices said federal law clearly gives federal workers protection from any discrimination based on age. The court said Congress had deliberately given federal workers more protection than workers in the private sector or workers in state and local governments.

"That Congress wanted to hold the Federal Government to a high standard than state and private employers is not unusual," wrote Justice Alito. The federal government has long adhered to expansive anti-discrimination policies, he observed, adding, that "it is the policy of the Government of the United States ... to promote the full realization of equal employment opportunity through an affirmative program."

The "key takeaway in the case" is that if the federal government discriminates based on age, "it has violated the law," said Roman Martinez, who argued Babb's case in the Supreme Court last January.

At that argument, he took quite a verbal beating from Chief Justice John Roberts, who asked what would be the limits if, for instance, a hiring official, made remarks like "OK, boomer" when assessing who would get a promotion.

But Roberts signed on to the Alito opinion, as did every other justice except Clarence Thomas. He dissented, contending that the statute only allows suits by those who can prove discrimination is the sole reason they lost out on a job, a promotion, or other benefit.

Warrantless traffic stop case

In a separate opinion, the court, by an 8-to-1 vote, upheld a warrantless traffic stop by a sheriff's deputy in Kansas who based the stop on the assumption that the driver, defendant Charlie Glover, owned the car; Glover's license had been revoked.

Writing for the majority, Justice Thomas wrote, "We hold that when the officer lacks information negating an inference that the owner is the driver of the vehicle, the stop is reasonable."

The Kansas Supreme Court had previously ruled that when a driver has committed no infractions, police need something more than an assumption in order to have a reasonable suspicion that the driver is the owner and is driving without a license. But Thomas wrote that these traffic stops are a matter of "common sense."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, arguing that in "upholding routine stops of vehicles whose owners have revoked licenses, the Court ignores key foundations of our reasonable-suspicion jurisprudence and impermissably and unnecessarily reduces the State's burden of proof."

Religious advertising in on public buses and trains

Finally, the court refused to hear an appeal from the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.; the District bars issue advertising on its buses and trains, including religious advertising.

The Archdiocese wanted to place an ad at Christmastime showing the silhouettes of three shepherds looking at a star, along with the words "Find the Perfect Gift." A web address also on the ad led to information about Roman Catholic beliefs.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, operated by D.C., Maryland, and Virginia, rejected the ad, citing its policy that bars ads involving political and religious advocacy. The lower courts upheld the policy, but the Archdiocese appealed, contending that the policy amounted to unconstitutional discrimination against religious speech.

Two justices dissented from the court's refusal to hear the case. Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justice Thomas, called the transit ad policy "viewpoint discrimination by a government entity and a violation of the First Amendment."

"The Constitution requires the government to respect religious speech, not to maximize revenue," they wrote. So if the transit authority "finds messages like the one here intolerable, it may close its buses to all advertisements." Or it could try to restrict ads to subjects "where religious advertisements are less likely to arise without running afoul of our free speech precedents. "

As Gorsuch observed, the court may well take on a similar case in the future, as the conservative majority has aggressively disfavored such restrictions. The problem with this case is that it came from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a court that now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh sat on when the case was decided. So only eight justices would have heard the case, and they could have deadlocked.

Starbucks discrimination lawsuit awarded white employee $25 million: Legal experts weigh in

Shannon Phillips received $25.6 million in damages after a six-day trial.

A federal jury this week found that Starbucks discriminated against a white manager who was fired amid an uproar over the company's treatment of Black customers at a store in Philadelphia five years ago.

The ex-manager, Shannon Phillips, received $25.6 million in damages after a six-day trial, Phillips' attorneys previously told ABC News.

The resolution of a lawsuit against one of the nation's largest employers drew attention to the standard for proving discrimination as well as the federal protection against bias afforded to all racial groups, regardless of whether they've faced historical marginalization, experts told ABC News.

The jury appears to have been persuaded in part by the argument that Phillips was fired as part of a public relations effort undertaken by Starbucks in response to racial justice backlash, which may carry implications for how corporations act in such circumstances, experts added.

Starbucks did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment. In court documents , the company rejected allegations of discrimination, saying that it disciplined Phillips for "legitimate, nondiscriminatory, non-retaliatory reasons."

MORE: Starbucks ordered to pay over $25 million to white former manager who claimed racial discrimination

Here's what to know about the Starbucks discrimination case and its implications, according to legal experts:

Why did the jury find that race played a role in the firing of the Starbucks employee?

In 2018, two Black men -- Donte Robinson and Rashon Nelson -- were arrested at a Philadelphia-area Starbucks store after an employee called 911 and accused them of trespassing because they had not made a purchase.

The two men later reached a private settlement with Starbucks and the City of Philadelphia, which agreed to pay each of the men $1 and establish a $200,000 fund for young entrepreneurs.

Phillips, a then-regional director who had worked at the company for nearly 13 years, was terminated less than a month after the incident.

In an initial lawsuit filed by Phillips in 2019, she said she was not at the store that day nor involved in the lead-up to the arrests, alleging instead that her race played a "determinative role" in her termination.

A key piece of evidence in the case centered on testimony from a Black district manager who said he thought race had played a role in Starbucks' decision to fire Phillips and allow him to remain with the company, Phillips' attorney previously told ABC News.

MORE: Target faces criticism from artists involved with Pride month products over response to boycott: ‘Quick to fold’

Legal experts concurred with that assessment, saying that the plaintiff's ability to point to disparate treatment of a relevant employee was critical to the jury's finding of discrimination.

"My understanding is that in these cases what you have to have is a comparative," Rick Rossein, a professor of employee discrimination law at the City University of New York Law School, told ABC News. "Here you have a Starbucks manager giving that type of testimony."

In court documents, Starbucks contested this account of its actions, saying instead that it disciplined Phillips based on poor performance. Phillips "appeared overwhelmed, frozen and lacked awareness of how critical the situation was for Starbucks and its partners," the company claimed .

Phillips appeared to further persuade the jury with her explanation for the alleged mistreatment, describing her firing as part of the company's effort to minimize the public relations fallout from the arrests, the experts added.

"Evidence points to Starbucks taking action against an employee in order to address public opinion as opposed to really addressing the question of who was involved in making that decision," Risa Lieberwitz, a professor of labor and employment law at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations, told ABC News.

Is it unusual for workplace discrimination cases to be brought on behalf of white people?

Phillips’ case is unusual because the majority of cases alleging a violation of federal discrimination law on the basis of race involve non-white people, legal experts told ABC News.

Legal precedent that reaches as high as the Supreme Court affirms that the measure at issue, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, protects white workers who experience discrimination, they added.

"Anti-discrimination law that deals with race discrimination applies to any allegation of race discrimination whether it would be against a white employee, a Black employee or another racial group," Lieberwitz said.

While discrimination lawsuits on behalf of white individuals are uncommon, white plaintiffs have proven more likely to succeed than non-white ones when federal judges adjudicate their racial discrimination claims, said Wendy Greene, a professor of anti-discrimination law at Drexel University Law School and the director of the Center for Law, Policy and Social Action.

MORE: 'Thrown in their faces': Bud Light salespeople say boycott is hurting commission

"The surprise for many people, however, is that federal civil rights laws initially designed to address the longstanding, systemic racial segregation, exclusion and discrimination endured by individuals identifying as non-white are seemingly more effective at redressing racial discrimination against individuals who identify as white," Greene told ABC News.

What are the implications of the finding that Starbucks discriminated in this case?

The decision in this case could heighten scrutiny of large companies in their treatment of workers who belong to groups protected against discrimination as well as complicate efforts to discipline workers charged with improving a company's performance on racial justice issues, experts said.

"We're in the era where people are looking very carefully at decision-making by major corporations," Rosstein said.

Greene, meanwhile, said that the decision could make it more difficult for companies to supervise workers involved in the implementation of racial justice initiatives, since companies could be accused of racial discrimination if they discipline such employees.

MORE: With anti-drag laws on the rise, drag queens reclaim the art as form of protest

Management must balance the need to create a work environment free of racial discrimination with a simultaneous commitment to "ensure workplaces are free of racial exclusion and subordination, which are often couched as acts of racial discrimination against white employees in favor of non-white people," Greene said.

The large award for damages in the Starbucks case could "discourage employers from disciplining or terminating employees they believe are not effectively handling complaints of discrimination," she added.

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Article contents

Culture, prejudice, racism, and discrimination.

• John Baldwin John Baldwin School of Communication, Illinois State University
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.164
• Published online: 25 January 2017

Prejudice is a broad social phenomenon and area of research, complicated by the fact that intolerance exists in internal cognitions but is manifest in symbol usage (verbal, nonverbal, mediated), law and policy, and social and organizational practice. It is based on group identification (i.e., perceiving and treating a person or people in terms of outgroup membership); but that outgroup can range from the more commonly known outgroups based on race, sex/gender, nationality, or sexual orientation to more specific intolerances of others based on political party, fan status, or membership in some perceived group such as “blonde” or “athlete.” This article begins with the link of culture to prejudice, noting specific culture-based prejudices of ethnocentrism and xenophobia. It then explores the levels at which prejudice might be manifest, finally arriving at a specific focus of prejudice—racism; however, what applies to racism may also apply to other intolerances such as sexism, heterosexism, classism, or ageism.

The discussion and analysis of prejudice becomes complicated when we approach a specific topic like racism, though the tensions surrounding this phenomenon extend to other intolerances such as sexism or heterosexism. Complications include determining the influences that might lead to individual racism or an atmosphere of racism, but also include the very definition of what racism is: Is it an individual phenomenon, or does it refer to an intolerance that is supported by a dominant social structure? Because overt intolerance has become unpopular in many societies, researchers have explored how racism and sexism might be expressed in subtle terms; others investigate how racism intersects with other forms of oppression, including those based on sex/gender, sexual orientation, or colonialism; and still others consider how one might express intolerance “benevolently,” with good intentions though still based on problematic racist or sexist ideologies.

• discrimination
• intolerance
• heterosexism
• stereotypes
• ethnocentrism

Introduction

One of the causes that gave rise to the postmodern revolution in France in 1968 was the failure of modern science and philosophy—liberalism, social science, reason, and so on—to remedy problems of war, poverty, and intolerance (Rosenau, 1992 ). As we look around today at the world in general, or even within specific nations, we continue to see a wide range of prejudice, from the 1994 genocide of Tutsis (and many Hutus) by Hutus in Rwanda to the mass killing of 70 people, mostly youths, at a Utøyan youth camp in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik. At this writing, a major refugee problem exists from people fleeing Middle Eastern countries where a strong ISIS influence is leading to the killing of gays, Christians, and Muslims from rival belief systems. In many European countries, hate groups and right-wing politicians are gaining ground. The Southern Poverty Law center tracks 1,600 hate groups within the United States (“Hate and Extremism,” n.d. ), classifying 784 that were active in 2014 (“Hate Map,” n.d. ), and the FBI reports nearly 6,000 hate crimes in the United States, with the greatest numbers due to race (48.5%), religion (17.4%), and sexual orientation (20.8%; FBI, 2014 ). These statistics reveal some interesting things about intolerance. For example, the “race”-based hate crimes include crimes based on anti-white sentiment as well as against people of color; and about 61% of hate crimes based on sexual orientation target gay males.

Both the international events and the statistics relevant to any specific nation prompt difficult questions about intolerance. In a white-dominant society, can or should we call anti-white crimes by people of color “racist”? If someone commits a hate crime based on sexual orientation, why are gay men more often the target than lesbians? Would hate crimes in other countries reflect the same axes of difference, or might hate crimes be based differently? German hate crimes might be based more on ethnicity (e.g., against Turkish immigrants, who by most racial classifications would be Caucasian). Why do people commit such acts at all?

One mistake we often make is thinking of prejudice and discrimination only in extreme terms such as genocide and hate crimes. In many countries and cultures, where overt expression of racism (and other intolerances) has become socially unacceptable, intolerances have gone “underground,” hidden in subtle forms. Further, intolerance can rely upon a wide variety of identity groups, including some that are (supposedly) biologically based, like racism, or based on other aspects, such as political party, fan status, or membership in some perceived group such as “blonde” or “athlete.” In sum, we must consider the relationship between different forms of intolerance, including but not limited to prejudice, racism, and discrimination; but these must always be understood within specific cultural contexts.

Culture and Intolerance

(re)defining culture.

As we look to the cultural influence on intolerance, we must first consider the definition of culture. The study of culture has deep roots in anthropological and linguistic research, especially as seen in the work of Franz Boaz and his students Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict, and Edward Sapir, as well as in the early work of Edward Tyler, itself based on earlier traditions of ethology (Darwin) and social evolution (Marx). This work influenced the work of anthropologist E. T. Hall (Rogers & Hart, 2002 ) and others who laid the groundwork for the study of intercultural communication (Leeds-Hurwitz, 1990 ). Scholars have debated whether culture is a shared mental framework of beliefs, norms for behavior (i.e., the expectations for behavior rather than the behaviors themselves), values, and worldview, or whether culture should also include actual behaviors, texts, and artifacts of a group. In 1952 , A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn synthesized over 150 definitions of culture into a single definition that focuses on “patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior,” along with “ideas and especially their attached values” (p. 181). These are influenced and created through symbolic behavior, action, and other aspects of the environment (history, geography). The definitional dimensions of culture described by Kroeber and Kluckhohn explained well many of the definitions of culture up until the 1980s. After that time, some scholars (especially in communication) began to treat culture more as a set of symbols and meanings. Others framed culture as a process of constructing social meanings and systems through communication. As people sing, speak, play, tell jokes, and conduct business, they are constantly (re)creating their culture—both relying upon it and changing it.

More pertinent to the study of intolerance is a new approach to culture that sees culture neither as “suitcase” of things (be those beliefs and values or texts and artifacts) passed down from one generation to the next nor as a neutral process of mutual symbolic creation through time, but as having vested power interests that seek to influence what is seen as accepted or normal within a culture. For example, Moon ( 2002 ) defines culture as a “contested zone”:

Thinking about culture as a contested zone helps us understand the struggles of cultural groups and the complexities of cultural life … If we define culture as a contested zone in which different groups struggle to define issues in their own interests, we must also recognize that not all groups have equal access to public forums to voice their concerns, perspectives, and the everyday realities of their lives” (pp. 15–16).

That is, every cultural manifestation, such as the framing of Australian culture as “individualistic” or saying that “Australian men have such-and-such characteristics,” highlights what one should not be within that culture and establishes bounds for group-based intolerance.

With this diversity of definitions in mind, one is not sure what to think culture is or should be. Baldwin, Faulkner, Hecht, and Lindsley ( 2006 ) present a series of essays on the definition of culture by authors from six different disciplines (e.g., multicultural education, anthropology, political science), as well as 313 definitions of culture from an even greater number of disciplines, which they analyze. While they are reluctant to settle on a single definition of culture, this definition embraces most trends:

The way of life of a group of people, including symbols, values, behaviors, artifacts, and other shared aspects, that continually evolves as people share messages and is often the result of a struggle between groups who share different perspectives, interests, and power relationships (Baldwin, Coleman, González, & Shenoy-Packer, 2014 , p. 55).

This definition of culture, like most definitions that take a symbolic, process, or critical approach, does not treat cultures as “nations,” but as people groups who share symbolic or speech codes, with multiple cultural groups—defined not by demographic constitutions such as race, sex, or age, but by shared communicative realities—sharing single geographic areas. It is in the creation and defending of cultures—from countries to local and virtual communities—that intolerance often becomes apparent.

The Role of Culture in Prejudice

Of various schools of thought about the nature and origins of intolerance, only one approach suggests that intolerance is biological or in some way inherited, and that is sociobiology, or evolutionary theory. This approach suggests that intolerance is based on such things as preservation of the purity of the gene pool of one’s group, an inherent fear of strangers, or an inherited need for group identity. But even evolutionary theorists cannot explain all intolerance based on a theory of inherited impulse. Meyer ( 1987 ) argues:

Xenophobia and ethnocentrism as extreme forms of this search for identity cannot be attributed to [human] biology … Their very existence is a result of [human’s] attempts towards understanding the world, and [their] strong affective need to delimit a cosmos of conspecifics with whom [they] can share interpretations of [their] socially construed world (p. 93).

Research on intolerance in 90 preindustrial societies suggests that, when there are clearly psychological causes for intergroup conflict, groups ultimately use communication to create who the enemy is and how one should demonstrate or show intolerance (Ross, 1991 ). In sum, there is a strong cultural component determining which intolerances are felt or expressed in a given place or time.

Culture, however one defines it, can affect tolerance. Culture might be a set of values and beliefs, such as the value of loyalty to one’s group, combined with a belief that people who belong to a particular group have particular characteristics, are unlikeable for some reason, or merit mistreatment and the application of a different set of standards than we apply to ourselves (Opotow, 1990 ). If culture is a process, then we might look at how a culture creates both identity and intolerance through the ongoing structures of language, including word choices (“babe,” “hunk,” “faggot”), conversational structure (interruptions, etc.), joke- and storytelling, and so on. For example, West and Zimmerman’s ( 1987 ) notion of “doing gender” (i.e., gender as an everyday accomplishment of language) has led to countless studies of gender construction in several nations, as well as a focus by others on how we also “do race” and other identities. The way that we construct our identities through communication is inherently linked to how we construct the identities of those in outgroups, as we shall see; but they are also linked to behavior within our group. Social constructionist approaches to culture thus often become critical in their focus on power relations. Critical approaches look at how cultures, through communication, architecture, law, literature, education, and so on create a sense of the “other”—and of the self—that constrains us and pits us against one another in group conflict.

“Culture”-Based Prejudices: Ethnocentrism, Xenophobia

The purpose of this article is primarily to look at racism and discrimination as forms of prejudice; however, these cannot be understood without a larger understanding of prejudice in general and other forms or types of prejudice. Allport ( 1979 ) defines prejudice as an antipathy one has or a tendency to avoid the other, based on the other person’s group. For Allport, prejudice is a cognitive or psychological phenomenon:

Prejudice is ultimately a problem of personality formation and development; no two cases of prejudice are precisely the same. No individual would mirror his [or her] group’s attitude unless he [or she] had a personal need, or personal habit, that leads him [or her] to do so (p. 41).

Based on the Greek word that means “fear of strangers,” xenophobia refers to “the fear or hatred of anything that is foreign or outside of one’s own group, nation, or culture” (Herbst, 1997 , p. 235). The idea is frequently applied to a mistrust or dislike (rather than merely fear) of outgroups or those perceived to be different, especially in national terms. While the Greek translation suggests the psychological component of fear, recent researchers have treated the concept in behavioral or message terms. Historical research on xenophobia links it to anti-Semitism and, more recently, to Islamophobia, though it does not have as clear a historical trajectory as ethnocentrism; many more recent studies look at South Africa as a model nation in attempting to strategically reduce xenophobia. Researchers use a variety of methods to look at xenophobia, depending on their research assumptions and background disciplines. Rhetorical media research, for example, analyzes how Czech newspapers code anti-Roma sentiment through subtle terms such as “inadaptable citizens” ( nepřízpůsobivý občan , Slavíčková & Zvagulis, 2014 , p. 159); and psychological survey research investigates how, among Southern California students, ethnocentrism is positively associated with both language prejudice and feelings of being threatened by immigrants (Ura, Preston, & Mearns, 2015 ).

Van Dijk ( 1993 ) notes how groups can use language such as hyperbole of differences to marginalize immigrants, often through appeals to so-called democratic values. He notes that in some countries, such as in Central Europe, where claims of racism are often forcefully resisted due to conceptual ties of the term to Hitler’s Holocaust, Ausländerfeindlicheit (fear of foreigners) takes its place, though this fear of foreigners is frequently aimed at Turks and other (often darker-skinned and religiously different) people who resist adoption of traditional Germanic culture.

Ethnocentrism

Some types of prejudice relate specifically to the larger and more traditional notion of culture (i.e., cultures as nations). Ethnocentrism gained prominence as an area of research following sociologist Robert Sumner’s 1906 definition of the term as gauging others in reference to one’s own culture ( 1975 ), though other sociologists soon began to distinguish between this notion of “centrality” and the idea of “superiority”—that one’s culture or group is superior to those of others. If one sees ethnocentrism strictly as a feeling of superiority, nationalism (or school spirit, or religious loyalty, etc.) might not in and of itself be ethnocentric if it focuses only on being loyal to or highlighting the benefits of one’s own group, without denigrating others, though some might argue that it is impossible to feel pride in one’s own group without, at some level, disdaining or thinking less of other groups. The possibility of an ethnocentric bias in research led many early anthropologists to suggest ethnography—spending extended time within a culture to see things from cultural members’ point of view—as a way to reduce ethnocentrism in research.

A consideration of ethnocentrism has implications for other forms of bias as well, as the factors that predict national cultural ethnocentrism—and solutions that address it—could apply equally to one’s perception of life within one’s own community. The Hmong-descended people of the Pacific Northwest in the United States will likely feel that their ways are superior to those of Moroccan- or Guatemalan-descended peoples, as well as to those of the dominant culture. Auestad ( 2013 ) presented a series of essays on the rise of political discourses across the world that highlighted elements of national security and identity (tradition), as well as the building of cultures of fear by focusing on the negative aspects of foreigners or those of different religious groups within single countries. Some elements of the U.S. presidential race rhetoric of 2015–2016 exemplified this xenophobic and ethnocentric trend.

Within the field of intercultural communication, at least two lines of research have focused on ethnocentrism. The first is by Jim Neuliep, who, with colleagues, has revisited the measurement of ethnocentrism in the classic 1950 work by the Frankfurt School, The Authoritarian Personality , with a new measure of ethnocentrism. After applying the measure to white Americans, Neuliep ( 2012 ) continues to test the relationship of ethnocentrism to other important intercultural variables, such as intercultural anxiety and communication satisfaction. The second is Milton Bennett’s ( 1993 ) consideration of ethnorelativism. In this approach, a range of attitudes reflects either ethnocentrism or ethnorelativism. Ethnocentric stances include denial (e.g., indifference toward or ignorance of any difference at all), defense (traditional ethnocentrism of denigrating the culture of the other or feeling one’s own culture is superior, but also in “going native”), and minimization (focusing on similarities and ignoring differences, by claiming “color blindness,” or focusing on how we are all the same, be that as “God’s children” or in the Marxist struggle against oppression; 43). As one grows more “ethnorelative,” or accepting of difference, one exhibits one of three stages: acceptance (being respectful of and even appreciating the value and behavioral differences of others), adaptation (actually adopting behaviors or views of other groups), or integration (adopting a worldview that transcends any single culture). This approach has gained ground around the world and in different disciplines, from Finland to Iran, with applications from cultural sensitivity to interreligious tensions.

One of the difficulties of discussing prejudice is the conceptual overlap between terms (e.g., xenophobia conflates with racial or ethnic prejudice; ethnocentrism might refer to any people group, such as ethnic groups, and not just nations). At the root of our understanding of prejudice is the very goal of “tolerance.” In fact, the notion of tolerance for diversity may be limited: It is often treated merely as “the application of the same moral principles and rules, caring and empathy, and feelings of connections to human beings of other perceived groups” (Baldwin & Hecht, 1995 , p. 65). That is, it is similar to Bennett’s ( 1993 ) notion of acceptance, of respect for difference, though that respect sometimes (a) occurs at a difference and (b) sometimes exists in behavioral form only, but is not internalized. Communication of tolerance is a worthwhile pursuit in our behavior and research; however, we argue that we can go beyond tolerance to appreciation—even to the behavioral and attitudinal integration of elements of the other culture (Hecht & Baldwin, 1998 ). There is a danger of such appreciation, as borrowing (e.g., “cultural hybridity”) occurs within power relations. We are not talking about a dominant group borrowing from subordinate or subaltern groups in a colonizing or folklorizing way, but about cultural learning and dialogue.

Limited Perspectives of Prejudice

That consideration of tolerance/prejudice should be treated as a dichotomy or a range is only one of the difficulties that has haunted the study and conceptualization of prejudice. Debates have swirled around the nature of prejudice, the causes of prejudice, and the “locus” of certain prejudices (such as racism or sexism), among other things. Allport ( 1979 ) suggests that prejudice is a “generalized” attitude—that if one is prejudiced, say, toward Jewish people, she or he will also be prejudiced toward communists, people of color, and so on. It is possible, however, that one might be prejudiced toward some groups, even in some contexts, but not toward other groups (Baldwin & Hecht, 1995 ).

The nature of prejudice

Allport ( 1979 ) defines prejudice as “an avertive [i.e., avoiding] or hostile attitude toward a person who belongs to a group, simply because he [or she] belongs to that group, and is therefore presumed to have the objectionable qualities ascribed to the group” (p. 7). By this definition, prejudice is an aspect of affect , or feeling toward a group, though it is closely related to cognitions , or thoughts about the group, referring to stereotypes. Also, prejudice is inherently negative, following the primary definition common in modern dictionaries, though a secondary definition includes any sort of prejudgment based on group belonging, such as prejudice toward one’s own group. Most dictionary definitions follow the attitudinal approach, though in common usage, people often use the term to refer to things like racism, which carry behavioral and even policy implications that are not strictly attitudes. By strictest definition, prejudice is an attitude that favors one group over another, based on or related to cognitions, and both leading to and influenced by behaviors (including communication), texts (e.g., media, rhetoric), and policies (following the notion of structuration, in which social structures guide social behavior, but social behavior in turn creates and changes social structures).

Causes of prejudice

Allport ( 1979 ) recognized a series of influences that impact a particular incident of prejudice, such as police brutality based on racial group/social class divisions or anti-Islamic bullying in secondary schools around the Western world. These include historical, sociological, situational, psychodynamic, and phenomenological (i.e., perceptual) influences. But ultimately, for Allport, a social psychologist, prejudice is “a problem of personality formation and development” (p. 41). For Althusser ( 1971 ), a Marxist philosopher, prejudice would likely, in the last instance, be an issue of economic and social class considerations. Ultimately, a cross-disciplinary perspective is more useful for understanding a complex phenomenon like prejudice (Hecht & Baldwin, 1998 ). A broader consideration should consider multiple causes (Baldwin, 1998 ), including evolutionary causes, psychological causes (both psychodynamic and perceptual), sociological causes, and rhetorical causes. Communication and behavior become central in each of these causes, highlighting the need for a communicative understanding of prejudice.

Evolutionary causes, often referred to under the rubric of sociobiology, focus on the way in which prejudice might be an inherited trait, possibly even genetic (see, e.g., essays in Reynolds, Falger, & Vine, 1987 ). This approach includes the idea that groups seek to preserve themselves (e.g., by preservation of a supposedly pure gene pool or because of fear of the stranger), the ethnocentrism already noted. Behaviors that exclude have a sense of “naturalness” in that they help a group to survive, and such exclusion of strangers may help to preserve a group’s existence. Some scholars have criticized this approach as a rationale for conservative politics that create a notion of “us” and “them” as natural and that exclude the other, often in racial or religious terms, in order to preserve the way of life of a dominant group within a culture or nation.

Psychological explanations of prejudice fall into at least two major divisions. The first, psychodynamic, suggests that prejudice serves as a mechanism for individuals to meet psychological needs. Thus researchers have long linked it to things such as ambivalence toward parents, rigid personality structure, and a need for authority (Allport, 1979 ; Adorno et al., 1950 ). We see this indirectly through Kenneth Burke’s ( 1967 ) approach to rhetoric in his analysis of Hitler’s campaign against Jewish people as a means to divert negative emotions related to economic and political difficulties from the mainstream German people to Jews, and in Edward Said’s ( 2003 ) Orientalism , which notes how Medieval Europe cast negative images of lust and vice on Middle Easterners that the Europeans did not see in themselves.

A second aspect of the psychological approach concerns perception or cognition. This contains a range of possible influences on prejudice, including such things as selective attention, perception, and recall of the negative behavior of outgroup members, or the notion of attributional biases that impact how we give meanings to the behavior of those of our ingroup and those of outgroups. At the center of many of these explanations is the notion of categorization of people (i.e., dividing them into cognitive groups such as ingroups and outgroups). Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986 ) suggests that we cannot think of ourselves apart from the groups to which we belong; we engage in intergroup comparison as a means to make us feel better about our group; and, if our group does not compare well to a group we admire or must rely on in some way—often the dominant group—we engage in strategies to reclaim a sense of pride for our group or distance ourselves from it.

Categorization, in social identity theory, is not a form of prejudice—it is simply the mental placing of people (or things, actions, characteristics, etc.) into mental boxes. However, those boxes are closely related to the stereotypes that cling to groups. Stereotypes are overgeneralizations we make about groups that we apply to individuals in those groups (Herbst, 1997 ). Although these stereotypes provide a mental shortcut for processing information about others, they interfere with our encoding, storage, and recall of information about members of our own group and other groups (Stephan, 1985 ). Countless studies of stereotypes suggest that stereotypes, like ethnocentrism, can serve positive ingroup functions, that they sometimes have at least some basis in an actual behavior or custom (a “kernel of truth”), and that we stereotype both our own group and other groups. Devine (e.g., Devine & Sharp, 2009 ) has found that even people who report lower prejudice, if mentally occupied, still rely on stereotypes, suggesting that everyone is aware of societal stereotypes toward certain groups (e.g., the elderly, athletes, the deaf). It is likely that if we are on auto-pilot or in a state of mindlessness, we will resort to stereotypes. But individuating people (i.e., taking them out of the group we perceive them to be in and treating them as individuals; Dovidio, Gaertner, & Kawakami, 2003 ) may require deliberate cognitive effort.

Group-based, or sociological, approaches, like psychological approaches, are varied. These include Marxist approaches, which are themselves varied in form (see various essays in Rex & Mason, 1986 ). Some hold tightly to a “vulgar” vision of Marxism, framing intolerance like racism as a creation of the elite to divide the working classes and distract them from revolution through “false consciousness.” Few Marxists take such a severe approach, choosing to see looser relations between capital and the construction of intolerance, but in the “last instance,” seeing intolerance as linked to social class and economic systems. “Capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchal social systems are frequently identified as producing inherent race and gender inequalities which, in various ways, serve the needs of the systems they perpetuate” (Knowles & Mercer, 1992 , p. 110). Weberian approaches see a wider variety of classes than workers and elite, with prejudice linked not just to labor forces but to the struggle over goods, services, and prestige (Gerth & Mills, 1946 ). Other group-based factors also impact prejudice, such as perceived group competition for jobs and resources in times of economic upheaval (e.g., the 1970s oil crisis in the United States), known as realistic group conflict (Bobo, 1983 ); immigration reasons (refugees versus those seeking economic opportunity, patterns of settlement; Omi & Winant, 1986 ); and historically developed class statuses between groups that link immigrants or members of a minority group to a certain class (Wilson, 1978 ), such as the Gastarbeiter (guest-worker) Turks in Germany or the Algerian-descended French.

In a classic “chicken-egg” argument about which came first, it is fruitless to debate whether psychology leads to sociological causes or vice versa, and, in turn, whether these lead to the communicative expression of intolerance, or whether it is the communicative construction of group identities and intolerance that creates the attitudes (Ruscher, 2001 ). It is more likely that mental structures and communicative practices co-create each other, through forms we shall examine in more detail. One possible metaphor for understanding these influences, the impact of historical situations (such as the longstanding antipathy between Turkish and Greek Cypriots, Broome, 2005 ), and specific incidents (such as the attack on the World Trade Towers in New York City in 2001 ), is as layers building upon one other, or even as a hologram, in which we can imperfectly see some semblance of a complex prejudice through a single image—an experimental study on racial perceptions and media use, an analysis of an anti-Irish speech or a pro-nationalist song, or interviews with women who are victims of catcalling (Hecht & Baldwin, 1998 ). But, as a complete hologram provides the most faithful image, the most complete view of an intolerance will come through multiple views (e.g., disciplines), using multiple methods.

Racism: A Case Study in Prejudice

Racism as a specific type of prejudice is one of the most hotly discussed and debated sites of intolerance in contemporary times in the United States and beyond. Even countries that once imagined themselves as “racial democracies” in which racially different people lived side by side (like Brazil) are now admitting the harsh reality of entrenched and historic racism. Even though many there argue that class, not race, is the primary social distinction, as racism has become officially illegal, forms of overt racism, from social media to abuse and killing of unarmed blacks by police continue to receive recent focus in U.S. news.

Racism is a form of intolerance that is based on the supposedly biological distinction of race, but many authors today argue that race is a social construct, sometimes defined differently from country to country and even over time within a single country. Different authors have outlined the history of the notion of race in the English language, noting that at different times, it has referred to an ancestral clan (the race of Abraham), to supposed biological differences, and, more recently, to culture (Banton, 1987 ; Omi & Winant, 1986 ). Those who see a biological component cannot agree on how many races there are and, historically, politics and rhetoric have done as much to construct who belongs in a particular race as biology (e.g., in the early U.S., the Irish were considered “colored”). In the United States, race was based on racist assumptions, on one having even a small degree of colored blood in one’s ancestral lineage; in other cultures, race is based strictly on physiological features, regardless of lineage. Ethnicity , in contrast, is related more to the cultural origins of one’s background or ancestry, sometimes linked to a specific time and place. To emphasize its social constructedness, many authors bracket “race” with quotation marks.

Who Can Be Racist? The Locus of Racism (and Other Intolerances)

Can minority members be “racist”.

Beyond the nature of race itself, researchers and educators debate the very nature of racism. Some contend that racism is an intolerance based on the construction of race that is perpetrated and held by the support of the dominant system. For example, Malott and Schaefle ( 2015 ) define racism as “a system of oppression, whereby persons of a dominant racial group (whites in the United States) exercise power or privilege over those in nondominant groups” (p. 361). According to this argument, only whites can be racist in a white-dominated system (whether that dominance is by numbers or in political and social power). Others contend that racism is any system of beliefs—“held consciously or otherwise”—that treats members of a group that is different on supposedly biological grounds as “biologically different than one’s own” (Herbst, 1997 , p. 193). By this definition, anyone who sees another race group as inferior would be racist.

The locus of racism: Individual or structural?

This distinction in racism also applies to definitions of sexism or to the delineation between homophobia as a personal dislike or fear of LGBT individuals and heterosexism as a social structure that reinforces prejudice against them (Nakayama, 1998 ). The debate is similar to the definitional debate of prejudice in general—is it something that is strictly an individual trait, or is it something that is socially built into the structures of society—the laws, the media, the educational system, the church, and so on? Associated with this question is the nature of what racism is: The “individual-level” definition treats racism as a system of beliefs (i.e., a psychological construct), and the other treats it as a system of oppression that goes beyond individual psyche and personality to consider racism embedded within social structures. The question of where we see racism (and other intolerances) is vitally important. Those who see racism and other intolerances as primarily individual-level (stereotypes, personal dislikes, etc.) tend to address intolerance through training and educational programs in organizations and schools; those who see it as systemic believe that such approaches ignore larger issues of policy, law, segregation, discrimination, and media/rhetoric that produce and reproduce racist beliefs or create an environment that makes them grow. We see this tension, for example, in Rattansi’s ( 1992 ) discussion of the debate between multicultural education—an educational solution to tolerance focused on educating about differences—and antiracism, which addresses political and social structures that propagate and support racism.

Racism: Defined by intent or result?

A related definitional distinction regarding racism concerns whether an intent of harm or exclusion is necessary to define thoughts or actions as racist. Miles ( 1989 ) criticizes earlier notions of racism, largely in that they re-inscribe the notion of race as if it were a concrete reality rather than a social construction. He weaves together a new approach to racism that begins with discourses that serve to exclude the “other” (based on supposed biological differences); for Miles, “the concept of racism should refer to the function, rather than the content of the discourses” (p. 49), allowing racism to include things that may not sound racist but still seek to exclude the other. Miles differentiates racism from racialization , the categorization of people based on supposed biological differences. He argues against the use of racism and disagrees with a stance that would have only whites being racist, such that “all ‘white’ people are universally and inevitably sick with racism” (p. 53), as this concept may ignore the specifics of racism in particular countries, cultures, or circumstances; however, he notes the need to consider institutional racism—racism built into organizational, legal, and social structures—that does favor whites in many countries. By this, one could speak of racism as something any person could hold or express, but institutional racism would be reserved for a group that has power in a particular context. Finally, he bases racism not on the intent of an action, but on the result. He argues that racism is an ideology, based on differentiation, that leads to “exclusionary practices” (pp. 77–78), such as differential treatment or allocation of resources and opportunities, regardless of one’s intent or even awareness of the ideological underpinnings of one’s actions. Goldberg ( 1993 ) argues that we should allow racism to include either intent or result.

Including resulting exclusionary practice in our definition of racism has implications for redressing or addressing racism. First, it suggests a limitation in addressing overt racist thoughts and stereotypes only through education, as policies, laws, and social structures foster an environment for the presence of such thoughts and their communication. Miles ( 1989 ) advocates that “strategies for eliminating racism should concentrate less on trying exclusively to persuade those who articulate racism that they are ‘wrong’ and more on changing those particular economic and political relations” (p. 82). A second implication is that, even as we seek to address racism through everyday interactions and social media, because racism is such a charged topic, we will advance our cause little by calling an action, a joke, or a Facebook or Twitter posting “racist.” The poster, holding a more traditional view of racism as intentionally harmful in some way, will deny racist intent, and a charge of racism will move the discussion into the original communicator’s attempts to avoid the charge of racism (or sexism, etc.), rather than addressing the specific policy, image, or statement. Instead, we might discuss and demonstrate through evidence the way that the policy or image excludes others based on race. Without invoking the “r-word,” we may have a better chance at engaging in dialogues about policies, laws, and communicative behaviors that exclude others.

Intersectionalities of Racism

As we have begun to notice, one thing that complicates the concept of racism is its overlap with other terms, such as prejudice (with racism being a subset of prejudice). So, although xenophobia and ethnocentrism are distinct and separate from racism, the “other” within these concepts is often articulated or perceived in terms of race. A focus on racism and antiracism, unfortunately, often excludes other bases of intolerance that may be even more prominent within a given area, such as religious intolerance, sexism, or heterosexism. At the same time, it is useful to see how racism intersects with and sometimes leads to other intolerances, all of which have received much thought in recent years.

In some cases, feminists and antiracists have been at odds, proponents of each claiming that their sphere of oppression is the one that merits the most attention. Feminism is defined as “the belief that men and women are equal and should have equal respect and opportunities in all spheres of life—personal, social, work, and public” (Wood, 2008 , p. 324). Feminist communication research seeks to make the voices of women heard, to highlight their experiences within the social construction of gender, and “their experiences of oppression and of coping with and resisting that oppression” (Foss & Foss, 1994 , p. 39). Recent feminists consider how patriarchy, or male power or hegemony over the realities and voices of women, is not something maintained only by men nor is it deliberate. Rather, it is held in place by systems often beyond the awareness of men and women, and consented to and participated in by women themselves (Zompetti, 2012 ). Each of these ideas could also apply to racism, revealing a similarity between sexism and racism. But racism and sexism are also joined in the experiences of women of color, whose specific life situations are not fully addressed by either antiracist efforts or feminism. Collins ( 1990 ), for example, argues that African American women in the United States live in a site of triple oppression—by race, sex, and class, with these oppressions articulated by both the dominant white community and within the black community.

Queer theory

Queer theory seeks to challenge the way in which society passes on heterosexuality as the norm. Warner ( 1991 ) sees oppression of gays and lesbians in every aspect of society and in “a wide range of institutions and ideology” (p. 5). But even more so, he feels that the academy’s silence regarding oppression of sexual identity participates in that oppression. Chávez ( 2013 ) supports this claim, noting that at the writing of her article, no major journal in the National Communication Association had devoted a full issue to queer studies. Again, recent scholars have been looking at the intersection of race and sexual orientation (Yep, 2013 ), such as the representations and experiences of older gay male adults, Latina lesbians, and transgender blacks.

Whiteness studies

Based on the early writings of Richard Dyer ( 1997 ) and Ruth Frankenberg ( 1993 ), researchers have highlighted the notion of whiteness —a hidden system of ideology and social structure that maintains whites in a position of advantage—but one that is often invisible to, and yet defended by, whites (Wander, Nakayama, & Martin, 1999 ). Whiteness studies call attention to areas of white privilege. “By exposing the ‘invisibility’ of whiteness, the study of whiteness helps us understand the way that white domination continues” (p. 22). A current search for “whiteness” in a communication library search engine reveals over 800 articles on the topic. Many of these are media studies on how whiteness is promoted and/or challenged in a wide variety of texts, including South Park , the Rush Hour movies, The Hunger Games , and Glee . But whiteness is also analyzed in areas of education, everyday language, and health and organizational communication, as well as in many different countries.

Orientalism/postcolonialism

whiteness studies owe part of their heritage to postcolonialism, which has its own roots in the conceptualization of Orientalism by Edward Said ( 2003 ). Said analyzes European art and literature to reveal the construction of the Arab or Middle Easterner as “other.” He notes how the Western ideology of the East (referring to the Middle East) folklorizes and sexualizes Middle Easterners, treating them as backward, in a way that justifies European colonization and paternalism. Thousands of books now deal in some way with Orientalism, and Said’s notion of the “other” has become a stock theme in how we consider the racial other. For example, though not framed explicitly in Orientalism, James Baldwin’s famous 1955 essay “Stranger in the Village” talks about the rage of the black man as he confronts white America and the naiveté of whites—a naiveté that they work hard to preserve (thus relating Baldwin’s ideas to whiteness). When whites arrive in Africa, blacks are astonished:

The white man takes the astonishment as tribute, for he arrives to conquer and to convert the natives, whose inferiority in relation to himself is not even to be questioned; whereas I, without a thought of conquest, find myself among a people whose culture controls me, has even, in a sense, created me, people who have cost me more in anguish and rage than they will ever know, who yet do not even know of my existence … The rage of the disesteemed is personally fruitless, but it is also absolutely inevitable: the rage, so generally discounted, so little understood even among the people whose daily bread it is, is one of the things that makes history.

Postcolonialism, building upon Orientalism, considers all locations where one nation or people group has colonized another group, considering the cultural, political, and social ramifications of that colonization and seeking to remedy social ills that it has brought about. Shome and Hegde ( 2002 ) call the approach “interventionist and highly political” (p. 250). Postcolonialism notes how much of the world is forced to work within thought systems created by the Western world (an effect only magnified through the rise of the internet and globalization). Postcolonial writers are often interested in issues such as migration of people groups (including diasporic groups); the hybrid (but power-laden) mixture of ideas, artifacts, and behaviors between cultures; the liminal spaces between cultures; and the imperialism of ideas (Bhabha, 1994 ). Thus, postcolonialism is inherently about prejudice and oppression beyond racism, though it also has links to racism specifically, as authors consider the ways that some have used racial categories to colonize others (e.g., see essays in Nakayama & Halualani, 2010 ).

Discrimination: Considering the Form(s) of Intolerance

As we have seen, it is difficult to discuss prejudice in general or racism specifically without moving into issues of institutionalized prejudice, media representations, school and government policies, and so on. In this sense, both prejudice and racism are intricately intertwined with discrimination. Discrimination specifically refers to “behavior that denies equal treatment to people because of their membership in some group” (Herbst, 1997 , p. 185). It is based on the “beliefs, feelings, fantasies, and motivations of prejudice” (p. 185), but these mental or social concepts are not in themselves discrimination. Discrimination involves behavior.

Institutional Discrimination

When we think of institutional-level discrimination, many examples come to mind. These include things like not allowing certain groups housing or refusing other privileges, resources, or opportunities to them. At the writing of this chapter, a popular U.S. media topic is the county clerk, Kim Davis, who refused to give marriage licenses to gays or lesbians based on her faith, despite a state law that allowed her to do so. The Jim Crowe laws of the United States, which gave unequal educational and public access rights to blacks and whites is a classic example, with many facilities being for “whites only.” The website Global Issues (Shah, 2010 ) details instances of racism and racial discrimination around the world, such as racism against white farmers in Zimbabwe and discrimination against the Dalits—the “untouchables” in India.

Genocide and ethnic cleansing

At the extreme end of discrimination, we have genocide and ethnic cleansing . For example, around 1915 , the Ottomon (Turkish) empire slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians (75% of the Turkish Armenian population). The Turkish government took Armenian (largely Christian) children and converted them, giving them to Islamic families. Even today, Turkey defends this “Turkification” of Turkey as a necessary act of war and has resisted the U.S. and other nations defining it as genocide (Armenian genocide, n.d. ). Other genocides have occurred in Central Europe (the Holocaust) in the 1930s–1940s, Rwanda in 2003 , Cambodia in the 1970s, and the Greek/Pontic genocide of World War I. Extreme discrimination includes hate crimes and overt hate groups. The introduction of this chapter noted the prevalence of hate crimes and hate groups within the United States and other nations.

Redlining and racial profiling

In many countries, overt forms of discrimination for many (but seldom all) groups have been outlawed. Institutional discrimination itself may take forms that are harder to name and prove, such as redlining , the process by which banks give fewer mortgages to people of color, based on the belief that they are less able to repay loans. Some real estate agents may steer people of color away from rentals in upscale neighborhoods; school advisers may tell people of color that their children are more suited for trade school rather than college or graduate school. In the United States in 2014–2015 , there was a spate of cases surrounding potential police brutality against unarmed black men, leading to the “Black Lives Matter” movement. There is also racial profiling , such as when police pay more attention to people of color, stopping and/or searching them more frequently than they do whites (what some people of color call “DWB” or “driving while black”). A growing and complex array of academic studies examine whether or not profiling exists and, if so, what its nature is (e.g., is it pro-white, or does it depend on the race of the officer?). A similar phenomenon experienced by many people of color is being followed through stores by security guards, regardless of their attire or appearance. Notably, some aspects of discrimination, such as redlining, might be done, at least in the minds of the banker, real estate agent, or high school counselor, without a notion of racial discrimination; but here, Miles’s ( 1989 ) notion of racism defined by exclusionary outcome would classify the behaviors as racist, as they exclude based on supposed biological differences.

Intolerant Communication

Redneck racism/prejudice.

Central to our discussion is the way that discrimination and racism can occur through communicative behavior. Brislin ( 1991 ) outlined several forms of discriminatory communication. In addition to hate crimes and ethnic cleansing, he mentions redneck racism —the expression of blatant intolerance toward someone of another race. He applies these categories to racism, but we can apply them to any group. These might include jokes, statements (e.g., about the inferiority or backwardness of a group), or slurs or names for people of another group (also called ethnophaulisms ). Conventional wisdom, for example, suggests that there are many more slurs for women then there are for men, and most of these have some sexual connotation.

Sometimes, the intolerance is slightly veiled though still present, as when we resort to “us/them” language or talk to someone from another group about “your people.” Brislin’s ( 1991 ) notion of arm’s-length prejudice occurs when someone voices tolerance for a group, typically of being accepting of them in the neighborhood or workplace, but wants to restrict them from closer relationships, such as marrying a family member (related to Bogardus’s notion of social distance ; Allport, 1979 ). Prejudice might manifest in statements like “She’s very smart for an ‘X’” or “I have a friend who is a ‘Y,’ and he is very articulate,” since such statements assume that most Xs are not smart and most Ys are not articulate.

Prejudiced colloquialisms

Prejudice also manifests in our use of colloquialisms that play upon a particular aspect of identity or ability, such as calling something “lame” or “retarded.” Both the harm and use of such phrases has been established. For example, one study found that hearing the phrase “That’s so gay” made gays and lesbians feel less accepted in the university setting and, to a lesser degree, increased reported health problems. Over 45% of the participants had heard the word “gay” linked to something “stupid or undesirable” (Hall & LaFrance, 2012 , p. 430) ten or more times within the last year. Hall and LaFrance ( 2012 ) find a complex interplay between identity—males’ endorsement of gender identity norms andthe desire to distance themselves from homosexuality, as well as the social norms around them, and their likelihood to use the expression.

Prejudice built into language

We might well say that intolerance can be embedded in every level of language. In one classic study, men interrupted women much more than women interrupted men. If women overlapped men, men continued their turn speaking, but if men interrupted women, women yielded their turn speaking (Zimmerman & West, 1975 ). Coates’s ( 2003 ) analysis of narratives told by men in mixed company (such as around the family dinner table) notes that men are both the target and subject of most stories, with dinner table discussion typically centering on patriarchal authority. Research has explored prejudice through verbal and nonverbal behaviors toward people of different ages, people with disabilities, people with different languages or dialects, and other groups, including much theory and research on how we adjust or do not adjust our behavior toward those we perceive to be of different groups (communication accommodation theory; Gallois, Ogay, & Giles, 2005 ) or how minority members must negotiate their communication with dominant group members because of contexts of power and prejudice (co-cultural theory; Orbe & Spellers, 2005 ).

Bar-Tal ( 1990 ) and Zur ( 1991 ) note the way that we use rhetoric to create a sense of others (i.e., to create the identity of the enemy in a way that then justifies discrimination) resonates with Burke’s ( 1967 ) analysis of Hitler’s rhetorical construction of the Jewish people. Collins and Clément ( 2012 ), summarizing research from a special 2007 issue of Journal of Language and Social Psychology on language and discrimination up to the present, summarize the role of language as it pertains to prejudice:

Language is the primary means through which prejudice can be explicitly and implicitly communicated and is, therefore, a major contributor to its transmission and maintenance. But language can also play a more rooted and integral role in prejudice: changing perceptions by distorting the information it carries, focusing attention on social identities, and being a factor in the definition of group boundaries (p. 389).

Intolerance gone underground: Subtle forms of prejudice

As early as the mid-1980s, authors began to argue that in Western societies, racism and other forms of intolerance were going underground (i.e., aware that the redneck varieties of intolerance were socially unacceptable, people expressed less overt intolerance but continued to show intolerance through racism in ways that were “subtle” and “everyday”—a new and modern racism). People might express such forms of racism (and by extension other intolerances) through nonverbal behaviors, such as placing change on the counter instead of in an outgroup member’s hand, or through subtle sayings and word usages that exclude or put down the other person in some way that is not clearly distinguishable as prejudice. In the new racism, minority groups are not spoken of as inferior but as “different,” “although in many respects there are ‘deficiencies,’ such as single-parent families, drug abuse, lacking achievement values, and dependence on welfare and affirmative action—‘pathologies’ that need to be corrected” (van Dijk, 2000 , p. 34). Today, researchers and social activists refer to these subtle manifestations of prejudice as microagressions .

Symbolic racism is similar to subtle racism (Sears & Henry, 2005 ), though it relates more to political attitudes. Researchers have framed symbolic racism to include elements of anti-black sentiment hidden by political attitudes (e.g., that affirmative action has gone too far, that blacks are demanding too much; McConahay, 1986 ). Political research has a corollary in communication in that often, as whites talk about economic or political issues, there is at least a mental if not an explicit verbal coding of race or ethnic “othering.” International ownership of business becomes an issue when Japanese or Chinese companies start buying U.S. businesses, regardless of the large and long-term Dutch and English business holdings in America; discussions about welfare, gangs, and urban decay are often subtly about race. Similar verbal coding may also hold true with other identity groups.

Finally, in terms of face-to-face communication, researchers have explored the notion of “benevolent” intolerance. Discussions of things such as benevolent racism or sexism are often based on a larger notion of benevolent domination, whereby one nation or group seeks to dominate another, supposedly in its best interests (based on Rudyard Kipling’s notion of the “white man’s burden”). For example, Esposito and Romano ( 2014 ) contrast benevolent racism to other forms of post-U.S.-civil-rights forms of racism, such as laissez-faire racism, symbolic racism, and color-blind racism. Each might oppose affirmative action, for example, but for different reasons. Laissez-faire would oppose it based on ideas of meritocracy and free enterprise, blaming blacks themselves for lack of economic progress. Symbolic racism would hold that “the United States is a fair and equitable society where everyone has ample opportunity to succeed through hard work and talent” (p. 74), and that blacks who use the “race card” are hypersensitive—they are “too pushy, too demanding, too angry” (McConahay & Hough, 1976 , p. 38). Color-blind racism starts with what seems to be a reasonable assumption, that all people are the same, but then moves to assume that lack of progress of minority members is due to their personal choices, low work ethic, or lack of ability, and ignores structural support for inequalities.

Benevolent racism has a long history, even into slavery, a time in which some whites felt they were doing blacks a favor by controlling them and “providing” for them. More recently, it involves a seemingly positive attitude toward blacks that then opposes any social reforms like affirmative action as belittling blacks and working against their natural progress as citizens (Esposito & Romano, 2014 ). Benevolent sexism holds the same basic idea: Rather than sexism being based on anti-woman attitudes, it can also be supported by putting women “on a pedestal,” characterizing them as “pure creatures who ought to be protected, supported, and adored, and whose love is necessary to make a man complete” (Glick & Fiske, 2001 , p. 109). Extensive research has linked such benevolent ideas about women to negative outcomes for them.

Intolerance in the media and on the internet

Finally, many volumes have been written on the issues of stereotypes and intolerance in the media. This includes both social scientific work, such as the cultivation theory research that analyzes both representation of minorities in the media in different countries and the research that considers the effects of such representation. It also includes a wide array of critical and cultural analyses from the cultural studies school. Many of these analyses use the principles discussed—feminism, postcolonialism, critical race theory, whiteness, and so on. They work to demonstrate how the media systematically ignore, oversimplify, or negatively represent particular groups. One line of research in this field is the focus on the symbolic annihilation of race (Coleman & Chivers Yochim, 2008 ), which notes how, unlike stereotypes in the media that focus on the presence of some characteristic associated with a group, symbolic annihilation also considers “the meanings associated with absence, omission, or even inclusion that is not so obviously problematic (negative)” (p. 2), in terms of what such absences and seemingly benign images mean.

With the growth of the internet and video gaming, a final area of importance in understanding, researching, and working against prejudice includes all new media. The internet gives impetus for new research to understand hate groups on the media, flaming (e.g., in comments on video-hosting websites such as YouTube), and social media. We see examples of the use of social media for racist purposes in the flurry of racist twitters that followed the crowning of Nina Davuluri, an American of East Indian descent. Research considers both the presence of stereotypes in such media, as well as their effects.

The potential of communication

Unlike some early critical writers, who felt that media imagery (including new media) only produce and reproduce prevailing (prejudiced) ideologies, we must also consider the potential of face-to-face, mediated, and new media as places to challenge oppression. In terms of face-to-face communication, we can work through education to dispel stereotypes. That education can be simply on cultural differences and accomplishments, though changing cognitions alone may not change deeply felt affective prejudice, and only time (as more tolerant individuals assume positions of leadership) will lead to changes in discriminatory social structures. This is why some advocate for political education that addresses both personal and structural prejudice more directly, as well as political action and intervention in media systems.

Many scholars represent interpersonal contact as one of the best ways to address prejudice. Contact theory holds great potential for the planning of interventions to reduce intergroup tensions, as it describes how interpersonal contact with people from outgroups under the right conditions can work by changing both attitudes and affect, especially if people can see the other person as both a member of a new group while still recognizing their original group identity (Dovidio et al., 2003 ). Thomas Pettigrew ( 2016 ) outlines the history of research on authoritarianism (the desire and support for strong authority structures) and relative deprivation (the feeling that one’s group is disadvantaged in comparison to another group) as two of the main predictors of intergroup prejudice. He notes how, while personality factors like authoritarianism and cognitive rigidity are related to greater intolerance and make the likelihood of meaningful intergroup contact more unlikely, even in the presence of these variables, contact programs can have a positive effect for people with prejudice A meta-analysis of 515 contact studies suggests that contact works specifically by increasing knowledge of the other group, decreasing anxiety when one is with the other group, and increasing empathy for the other group (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2008 ).

In terms of media, we see both a growth in the production of media that challenges and resists stereotypes, rigid gender constructions, and so on, as well as a growth of grassroots efforts to highlight such oppression. One such effort is the website Fat, Ugly, or Slutty , a site composed of posts contributed by women who are stereotyped or verbally assaulted by men in video gaming websites, usually when the women have beaten them. The women are able to post comments made by other players, their own avatars, and even videos that the men sometimes send them. Efforts like these highlight forms of oppression that occur throughout the internet, but they also highlight the potential of the internet for addressing these forms of oppression in creative ways.

Conclusions

We have seen throughout this article that culture, prejudice, racism, and discrimination are related in complicated ways. Some people even see the characteristics of a particular culture (e.g., mainstream America’s conception of male and female beauty, the definition of a “good” education, or the focus on individualism) as negotiated between people with economic and power interests. Cultures (using the term much more widely than “nation”) are always ethnocentric, with individuals sometimes being xenophobic. But these forms of intolerance are frequently linked to other forms of intolerance—religious, racial, ethnic, and otherwise. Prejudice, most technically, is an affect—a desire to avoid someone because of her or his group, as opposed to stereotypes, which are more cognitive associations with a group—and efforts to reduce prejudice should focus on both affect and cognition. But intolerance is also clearly linked to higher-order manifestations of prejudice, such as discrimination through legal and organizational policies, symbolic annihilation of groups in the media, and everyday forms of discrimination, be they overt or subtle. More likely, communicative and policy forms of prejudice (and their manifest effects in terms of housing, education, job opportunities, and so on) “create” prejudicial perceptions, which in turn create the conditions of discrimination. Racism serves as an example—but only one of many—of the links among attitude, communicative action, policy, and social structure. With this complex view in mind, we can see that any attempts to redress or ameliorate racism or any other intolerance must include not only education, or even merely a wide array of communicative responses (media and face-to-face), but also efforts at addressing social inequalities at the structural and policy levels.

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6 A Case Study: Racial Profiling

• Published: November 2015
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The disrespect-based theory developed earlier in the book aspires to explain what is characteristically and intrinsically wrong about core cases of wrongful discrimination. This chapter considers at length one example of the kind of discrimination that is not necessarily ruled out by the moral demands of respect for persons: racial profiling in law enforcement. The chapter argues that this practice, and others like it, may be troubling on grounds that are fundamentally contingent and hence very different in character. What makes racial profiling morally wrong may not be that it is distinctly unfair, or that it is necessarily racist, but rather that it contributes to a set of conventional social understandings that do unjustified harm. The chapter develops this argument by clarifying the general conceptual distinction between “profiling” and the use of “suspect descriptions,” and proceeds to consider the merits of several different arguments often advanced against profiling.

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• Equality and Diversity

12 Notorious UK Discrimination Cases

on 01 Mar 2024

Discrimination takes many forms, from gender or age to well-intentioned or just malicious. We examine some of the most serious, high-profile cases in the UK.

No matter what guise it adopts, discriminatory behaviour is never anything but harmful. One in five UK adults experience workplace discrimination . As a result, more and more people are beginning to take a stand against it and are challenging employers and entire institutions in court or the employment tribunal.

Of the many discrimination cases appearing before judges and investigators in the UK, some truly stand out for their severity or uniqueness. We take a look at just how varied cases of discrimination can be.

Dirty dozen of the worst UK discrimination cases

• When age is not just a number, and neither is a hefty fine
• Discrimination plagues NHS England
• BNP Paribas' #MeToo moment
• Police force has deaf ears about hearing tests
• An important lesson for teacher's employer
• Lost in translation
• Home Office worries lead to internal consequences
• Fit to carry a child but not carry out her job
• The inability to read or tell time doesn't equal dishonesty
• Turning a frown into a smile
• Pink or Punk?
• The cake case that takes the biscuit

1. When age is not just a number, and neither is a hefty fine

An 89-year-old NHS secretary, Eileen Jolly, became the oldest person in the UK to win an age discrimination claim . Her superiors at Reading's Royal Berkshire Hospital fired her, claiming that she was stuck in her "old secretarial ways" and that she had demonstrated a "catastrophic failure in performance".

In a nutshell, Eileen was fired for not having the ability to use a modern computer. However, the employment tribunal found that "there was evidence of the claimant's training having been inadequate, incomplete and the 'on the job' training was ad hoc and not directed". While Eileen never got her job back, she did end up £200,000 richer!

2. Discrimination plagues NHS England

Liverpool senior nurse, Michelle Cox, won a landmark case against NHS England Improvement after the court heard evidence of her harassment and victimisation by her employer. Furthermore, her whistleblowing claims were disregarded after she raised a grievance and an appeal.

The employment tribunal found that Ms Cox's manager, Gill Pax, side-lined, undermined and intimidated her. Direct discrimination in the form of purposefully excluding Ms Cox from team away days and Pax excluding her from recruiting to new senior posts in her team.

These are two examples of several occasions of direct discrimination. The tribunal found that Ms Cox was a victim of a "hostile and humiliating environment". She was supported by the Royal College of Nursing and is in line to secure substantial compensation after being dismissed and discredited by her manager between 2019 and 2021.

3. BNP Paribas' #MeToo moment

A female broker won her sexual discrimination case against BNP Paribas . Stacey Macken told the tribunal that her mostly-male colleagues routinely subjected her to humiliating and sexist behaviour , such as leaving a witch's hat on her desk. She also said that her boss often answered with "Not now, Stacey" when asked a question.

As if that wasn't bad enough, Macken claimed that the bank frequently carried out her performance reviews in a way that made light of her contributions.

Unsurprisingly, this meant that she often missed out on bonuses that were dished out readily to her male colleagues, and the tribunal ruled that they couldn't find any evidence to the contrary. In the end, Macken won £2m from the sexual discrimination case.

4. Police force has deaf ears about hearing tests

In one of the more unusual cases on this list, a policewoman who is not disabled has won a claim against the police force for direct disability discrimination. Lisa Coffey was given a standard medical examination that revealed hearing loss upon joining the force. However, since she could pass the force's practical hearing test, she was permitted to work without requiring any adjustments.

Two years after she started working as a constable, Coffey applied for a transfer to another police force and was once again required to undergo a medical test. The results of this test were identical to the first; however, the Acting Chief Inspector refused her application because her hearing loss was likely to deteriorate in the future. The employment tribunal found this perception to be direct disability discrimination and awarded Coffey £26,616.05 in compensation.

5. An important lesson for teacher's employer

Gary Day-Davies, a teacher, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, won a case against United Learning Trust for their discriminatory treatment. After initially being suspended for being unfit to work, Day-Davies took appropriate measures to enable a speedy recovery. However, once he obtained proof from his GP and a psychologist that he was fit to work once more, the trust rejected this evidence, and his suspension was upheld.

While Manchester's employment tribunal ruled that the trust was right to initially suspend Day-Davies, rejecting solid recommendations from health professionals for no logical reason was not. In the end, the tribunal ruled that this was little more than a classic case of disability discrimination.

6. Lost in translation

A couple were awarded £2,500 in compensation after they suffered racial discrimination at the hands of a car sales company. Kin Hung Wong, a man of Chinese descent, and his wife, a Hong Kong national, visited John Mulholland Motors to buy a new car. Wong conducted all negotiations with staff in English, his first language. However, when explaining certain aspects of the sale to his wife, he switched to Cantonese, her mother tongue.

Regrettably, this was something that didn't go down too well with the staff present, who kept asking them to switch to English "because we are in the UK", despite Wong explaining that his wife can't speak it well enough to engage in a proper conversation. Wong said they were treated aggressively and rudely and not even offered a handshake once the sale was complete. The judge ruled that John Mulholland Motors's staff had "created a degrading and humiliating environment", which is why he ultimately ruled in the couple's favour.

7. Home Office worries lead to internal consequences

In what can only be described as a devastating let-down, British-born Vitesh Patel was fired from his dream job a mere two hours after being hired! With seven years of rising through the Home Office ranks under his belt, Patel applied to be an immigration liaison officer in New Delhi. He aced the interview, and an email confirming the post followed shortly after.

Unfortunately, he soon received another email that effectively fired him since his family connections in India presented "a risk that the employee may come under significant and unwelcome external pressure - in addition to the obvious conflict of interest risks." The employment tribunal found that Patel's unfair dismissal was racially discriminatory since his ethnic origin was used as grounds to deny him an opportunity he deserved.

8. Fit to carry a child but not carry out her job

A pregnant policewoman won a sex discrimination case against Devon and Cornwall Police after she was forced to move from the front line to a desk-bound position. Once PC Natalie Town informed her superiors about the pregnancy, she was given no choice but to move to the Crime Management Hub. Her employers believed this was "safe and suitable for a pregnant woman" despite her receiving advice that she was fit to carry out her regular role.

PC Town did not take the change well and felt it would permanently harm her career. As a result, she developed anxiety, depression, and migraine headaches, leading to a lengthy absence from work. The employment tribunal ruled that PC Town was a victim of indirect sex discrimination . Therefore, women were at a particular disadvantage in the form of susceptibility to an enforced transfer from an operational role to a non-operational role".

9. The inability to read or tell time doesn't equal dishonesty

Meseret Kumulchew, a dyslexic woman, beat Starbucks in a disability discrimination case after being wrongly accused of falsifying documents. The accusation was made after she mistakenly entered incorrect information on certain documents due to her condition, making it hard to read, write or tell the time.

Quite understandably, Kumulchew took the wild accusations badly, telling the BBC, "I nearly ended my life. But I had to think of my kids. I know I'm not a fraud. I just made a mistake." The employment tribunal uncovered that the coffee shop had not made any reasonable adjustments for dyslexic workers , thereby discriminating against Kumulchew because of her condition .

10. Turning a frown into a smile

In 2016, an Orthodox Jewish nursery fired Zelda De Groen from her job as a teacher. The reason for her dismissal was that people found out she was living with her boyfriend without being married, something generally frowned upon by the Orthodox Jewish community. After making the discovery, the school asked De Groen to tell the parents that she had changed living arrangements. When she refused, she was fired.

She took her case to the employment tribunal in 2017, where they found that she had suffered from both sex and religious discrimination. However, the nursery immediately appealed, and the Employment Appeal Tribunal later concluded that only the sex discrimination verdict applied. The nursery was cleared of the religious discrimination charge after the judge, Mr Justice Swift stated that employers are allowed to act to the detriment of an employee based on the employer's beliefs but not on the worker's .

11. Pink or Punk?

Another particularly odd case on this list involves a man who sued a brewery for refusing to serve him a drink at a discounted price. Ironically, Cardiff's Brewdog had relabelled some of their 'Punk IPA' bottles as 'Pink IPA' to raise awareness about the gender pay gap , selling them a pound cheaper than the standard drink. However, to buy one, you had to be a woman, which is where the root of this case lies.

When 27-year-old Thomas Bower, a male, tried to purchase a £4 bottle of Pink IPA, he was refused due to his gender . Oddly enough, he was allowed to purchase it after lying to the barman he identified as female. District Judge Phillips ruled in Bower's favour, finding the brewery guilty of sexual discrimination, adding that Bower must have felt "humiliated", which is why he was awarded £1,000 in compensation.

12. The cake case that takes the biscuit

Possibly the most high-profile discrimination case in UK history involves a 'gay marriage cake' . The trouble all started when Ashers Baking Company, a bakery with evangelical Christian owners, refused to bake a cake with a pro-gay marriage message due to their religious beliefs. The case was heard by several different courts, with judges initially siding against the bakery, deeming their refusal to be discriminatory.

However, in 2018 the supreme court went against previously made judgements. Instead, it ruled that the bakery had every right to refuse baking a cake that is against their beliefs, thereby clearing Ashers of all discrimination charges. Gareth Lee, the customer who originally ordered the cake, said he would take the case to the European Court.

Want to learn more about Equality & Compliance?

We’ve created a comprehensive Equality & Diversity roadmap to help you navigate the compliance landscape, supported by e-learning in our Essentials Library .

We also have 100+ free compliance training aids , including assessments, best practice guides, checklists, desk aids, eBooks, games, posters, training presentations and even e-learning modules!

Finally, the SkillcastConnect community provides a unique opportunity to network with other compliance professionals in a vendor-free environment, priority access to our free online learning portal and other exclusive benefits.

Workplace Harassment Training Presentation

Harassment and discrimination can take many different forms, and your employees must be aware of what it is and how discrimination affects the workplace.

By raising employee awareness of equality and diversity and explaining why discrimination needs to be stopped, you can help stamp out harassment.

Download your free training aid

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Disability Discrimination Case Study – The Equality Act 2010

BY ADISH FARKHAD, EMPLOYER LAW  

Taken from: NRAS magazine, Autumn 2012  

The following is a real case which  Adish  dealt with…  

Joe suffers from left hip early osteoarthritis with femoroacetabular impingement. He believes that this condition amounts to a disability within the meaning of the Equality Act 2010.    Joe is currently employed as a Personal Trainer at “All About Health” gymnasium (his “Employer”) and has worked with them for the past 10 years. Joe was diagnosed with hip early osteoarthritis with femoroacetabular impingement 3 years ago. He feels that he has been treated less favourably by his Employer because of his disability, contrary to the Equality Act 2010.    Joe has, on several occasions, made his Employer aware that he is suffering from a disability for which he requires reasonable adjustments to his working practices. Joe has requested the following adjustments:    1.    regular breaks from his shifts so that he can rest to ease the pain in his hip;  2.    a reduction in his hours but not so much of a reduction that would prevent him from earning a living. He wants to work 27 hours per week;  3.    an adjustment to the shift pattern for Personal Trainers to allow him to work Mondays and Tuesday which are his busiest days (so that he can continue to look after his key clients); and  4.    that his Employer waives its unreasonable request that Joe works every weekend (the quietest times) as part of his working hours as Joe wants to be treated in the same way as his non-disabled colleagues who only have to work one weekend per month.    Employee Booklets

Whilst Joe’s Employer has been on notice of his disability for over 3 years; it has persistently failed to make any adjustments to accommodate his disability. Joe’s manager regularly picks on him for demonstrating his hip pain in the way that he sometimes walks around the gym. His manager’s view is that Joe’s physical impairment does not create a positive image for the gymnasium and its Personal Trainers.    The subjecting of Joe to disability discrimination has meant that Joe has been prevented from working the reduced hours he requested and this has had a detrimental effect on his current health which has exacerbated the effects of his disability. Two months ago, Joe raised a formal grievance as he felt that he had no alternative but to do so in circumstances where all of his previous concerns raised verbally had been ignored. Joe’s Employer did not uphold his grievance and denied all liability for discrimination. Joe’s Employer did, however, agree to reduce his hours to 20 hours per week (with no flexibility or adjustment to enable him to work in excess of that should the need arise), requesting that he works at the quietest times every weekend and preventing him from working at the busiest times on Mondays and Tuesdays. He has also been allowed to take a 10-minute break when he feels in pain on the condition that he authorises the break with his manager so that his manager is aware of his whereabouts.    Joe’s Employer wishes to vary Joe’s terms and conditions of employment to reflect his new working hours (20 hours per week) and days of work to include working every weekend. Joe was told that he would face “proceedings” if he does not accept the proposed varied terms.    Joe considers that his Employer has failed to give any good reason for not agreeing to make the adjustments he requested and that the proposed adjustments that it is willing to make are unreasonable in the circumstances. Joe is aware that new staff are being recruited or being asked to cover Mondays and Tuesdays (his Employer has the maximum number of Personal Trainers already because it is allowing employees without a disability to work on a Monday and Tuesday instead of him).    Joe went to see a solicitor for legal advice to see if he had any potential employment claims against his Employer. He was advised that the Equality Act 2010 requires employers to make reasonable adjustments for employees who have a disability. Also, that employees with a disability should not be treated less favourably because of a disability. In Joe’s case, his employer did not provide any business reasons as to why it could not allow Joe to work 27 hours per week and on a Monday and/or Tuesday. Joe’s Employer had not sought a medical opinion from an Occupational Health Therapist about his disability and what recommended adjustments could be made. In all the circumstances, therefore, Joe’s Employer had failed to make reasonable adjustments. In addition to this, Joe’s Employer subjected him to less favourable treatment by insisting he works at the quietest times every weekend (when his colleagues who did not suffer from a disability did not have to work every weekend) and by insisting that he seeks his manager’s approval before taking breaks, in circumstances when it knew Joe had been bullied by him and that it would not always be possible to obtain such authority.    In addition to a claim for disability discrimination, Joe could also claim victimisation under the Equality Act 2010 because he was subjected to further less favourable treatment because he made a complaint (by raising his grievance) about disability discrimination, as his Employer threatened that he would face ‘proceedings’ if he does not accept the proposed variation to his terms and conditions of employment.    Joe was advised that if he were to pursue a claim in the Employment Tribunal for disability discrimination, he would be entitled to compensation for his injury to feelings, his future loss of income (if he were to resign and leave the gymnasium) and possibly the personal injury he had suffered due to his condition becoming worse as a result of his Employer’s failure to accommodate his disability. It was also explained to Joe that the Employment Tribunal would make a recommendation about reasonable adjustments for his continued employment (if he did not leave).    At the interview with his solicitor, Joe was concerned about the costs involved in pursuing an Employment Tribunal claim. However, when his solicitor discussed the matter with him, it became clear that he had Legal Expenses Insurance which would fund legal assistance. Joe was very surprised he had not realised he had such cover in his Home and Contents Policy. Joe’s solicitor assisted him to apply to his insurers for funding and then issued an Employment Tribunal claim on his behalf.    Employer Law     The Equality Act 2010 is the law which bans unfair treatment and helps achieve equal opportunities in the workplace and in wider society.  For further information and to download publications visit:  www.homeoffice.gov.uk/equalities/equality-act  

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Racial Discrimination in Contemporary   America

Equal opportunity is the bedrock of American democracy, and our country’s diversity is one of our greatest strengths. However, in recognition of the fact that many Americans still face systemic barriers to equal opportunity and full participation in American life because of their race, on his first day in office, President Biden committed to an ambitious racial equity agenda, which included signing two Executive Orders and catalyzing a whole-of-government effort to redress disparities and inequities still faced by underserved communities. This Issue Brief summarizes social science research on the prevalence of discrimination by race in a variety of economic domains. It also highlights the role of racial bias, and presents some new analysis on the relationship between racial discrimination and racial bias.

Executive Summary

• While many gaps have improved over time, significant racial disparities exist in various aspects of American life, such as neighborhood quality (which affects the childhood environment), employment in adulthood, and wealth accumulation.
• Research shows the persistence of differential treatment by race in access to housing, employment, and mortgage or business loans—even in settings where there are no differences across groups other than race (for example, job applicants with identical resumes but different names), or settings where no other factors would influence outcomes—indicating that discrimination still exists today and plays a role in explaining current racial gaps.
• Research shows that barriers created by discrimination lead to considerable reductions in the well-being of the targets of discrimination, in addition to forgone economic activity for all Americans.
• Focusing on Black-White gaps—where there is the most evidence—across various domains (e.g., housing, employment, and access to capital), racial gaps that can only reasonably be ascribed to discrimination are most pronounced in geographic areas where there are higher measured levels of both explicit and implicit racial bias (which may or may not reflect conscious actions or animus) based on validated psychometric measures.
• The prevalence and effect of implicit bias underscore the limitations of relying solely on race-neutral tools to advance equal opportunity.

Equal opportunity is the bedrock of American democracy, and our diversity is one of our country’s greatest strengths. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, enacted 60 years ago, aimed to advance this equality in multiple domains. It outlawed segregation in public places —including courthouses, parks, restaurants, theaters, sports arenas, and hotels. The Act also outlawed employer discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, and created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to enforce the law’s provisions.

Sixty years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Biden Administration is working to break down barriers to equal opportunity. On his first day in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government and on February 16, 2023, the President signed Executive Order 14091  to further advance racial equity. These Executive Orders aim to address the racial discrimination that persists in America today. This Issue Brief focuses on this present-day discrimination.

Discrimination not only affects its direct targets, but it also hurts the entire economy by hindering a significant portion of the population from realizing their full economic potential. For instance, Cook (2014) finds that violence against Black Americans from 1870 to 1940 resulted in over a thousand lost patents and that “ the economic impact of that decline was equivalent to the GDP of a medium-sized European country at the time . ” Moreover, Hsieh et. al. (2019) found that reducing the misallocation of Black talent since the 1950s (e.g., Black Americans who became shopkeepers instead of doctors due to racial barriers) increased per-capita GDP growth by about 4.9%—the equivalent of approximately $1 trillion in today’s dollars, adjusted for inflation. This is consistent with one accounting exercise that estimates that gaps in economic opportunity between Black, Hispanic, and other racial minority groups and those of non-Hispanic white individuals cost the U.S. economy trillions of dollars per year. While it is difficult to pin down a precise dollar amount, the evidence makes clear that eliminating discrimination is not just a matter of fairness but also about economic efficiency and the prosperity of all Americans.

Since the 1960s, certain measures of explicit bias and racism have significantly decreased. For instance, in the 1960s, a majority of White Americans believed they had the right to exclude Blacks from their neighborhoods and opposed interracial marriage . Today, these beliefs are held by a small minority. However, both explicit and implicit biases (that is, thoughts or impulses that can manifest as prejudiced action or inaction without biased intent) still exist in subtle but pervasive and consequential ways. Indeed, as discussed below, social science research confirms that racial discrimination is present in various sectors, including banking, housing, and employment.

While racial differences do not always imply discrimination, social scientists have found significant racial disparities in key areas, such as access to capital, employment, and housing, and in settings where the only difference between individuals was race, or in settings where all other factors were irrelevant—indicating that differential treatment because of race is still a reality (as discussed below).

This document describes evidence of differential treatment of renters, workers, business owners, and everyday people that can only reasonably be attributed to race. This differential treatment by race has effects from childhood through adulthood, and limits racial minorities’ access to neighborhoods that promote upward economic mobility, access to employment with good pay, and access to loans which facilitate business ownership and wealth creation. The research paints a clear picture of decidedly unequal access to opportunity because of race. While much of the existing research focuses on Black Americans, we also highlight examples of discrimination faced by other racial and ethnic groups when evidence is available. Moreover, this document highlights how this differential treatment is directly related to measures of implicit or explicit racial bias developed by social scientists. The patterns underscore that that differential treatment is important, economically meaningful, and pervasive even today, and highlight that racial discrimination still exists, even in settings when the official rules are race-neutral on their face.

Some Racial Differences Can Only Be Due to Discrimination

As used in this document, racial discrimination refers to different treatment of individuals or groups because of their race, whether the result of explicit or implicit bias. One method for demonstrating racial discrimination is to establish that (1) there are gaps (i.e., differences in outcomes) by race for some outcome, and (2) show that these gaps cannot be explained by reasons other than race.

While showing gaps by race is straightforward, showing that gaps are caused by racial bias is more difficult. For example, because of changing demography in the United States, the average White American adult is 50.3 years old, while the average non-White American adult is 39.9 years old. Also, older individuals tend to have more years of experience and therefore earn higher wages ( Census, 2013 ). As such, White Americans may earn higher wages than non-White Americans, on average, partly due to differences in experience rather than due to race per se . Even after adjusting for differences in age, one may also need to account for other economic, geographic, or demographic factors to assess whether the observed racial wage gap is due to racial bias. Indeed, in cases involving allegations of discrimination, courts routinely examine whether a policy or outcome resulting in disparities between racial groups can be explained on grounds other than race (e.g., Village of Arlington Heights v. Metropolitan Housing Development Corp. )

While not all racial gaps imply racial bias, there are some gaps that clearly do. That is, social scientists have gotten around the challenge on accounting for other factors by relying on settings where there are no differences across groups other than race , or settings where any other factors would have no influence on outcomes. In such settings, the only reasonable explanation for racial gaps is discrimination. We outline some of this evidence – showing clear evidence of discrimination against Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans across several key domains that limit their economic prospects from childhood through adulthood.

Evidence of Racial Bias in Access to Neighborhoods

One of the early determinants of economic well-being is one’s neighborhood during childhood. Notably, the neighborhoods where children grow up significantly influence their long-term educational and economic outcomes ( Chetty and Hendren 2018 ; Chyn and Katz 2021 ). These neighborhoods determine children’s access to clean water which is free from pollutants ( Huynh et al., 2024 ), high performing schools, and availability of job networks ( Fee 2020 ). The difference between growing up in a high-mobility neighborhood versus a low-mobility one has a strong causal effect on children’s long-run outcomes. Chetty et al. (2018 ) find that, even when comparing outcomes of siblings from the same low-income families , growing up in a high- versus a low-mobility neighborhood can increase adult earning by over 30 percent. As such, any discrimination that limits racial minorities’ access to high-mobility neighborhoods limits minority children’s prospects for upward mobility—that is, unequal opportunity because of race.

There are large racial gaps in neighborhood traits and amenities. Due to redlining —defined as the systematic denial of mortgages and other financial services because of the racial or ethnic characteristics of the residents of the neighborhood in which the property is located—many people of color still live in neighborhoods they were previously consigned to, which are in close proximity to  oil and gas wells . Also, racial minorities are much more likely to be exposed to air pollution than White Americans, more likely to live within a mile of a hazardous waste site , and less likely to have access to lead-free drinking water . In rural areas, they are also less likely to be served by a hospital. There is compelling evidence that racial bias in access to neighborhoods plays a key role in where people live—impacting outcomes for multiple generations. Consistent with this notion, Chetty et al. (2020) isolates the causal effect of neighborhoods on upward mobility (defined as growing up in a median income household and then having adult earnings in the top quintile) and finds that predominantly White neighborhoods are three times more upwardly mobile than predominantly Black neighborhoods. While past discrimination is partially responsible for these gaps, here we detail evidence that current discrimination plays a role.

In 2022, there were a total of  over 33,000 fair housing complaints  across the country and there are very recent high profile examples of sellers who do not want to sell to Black families . Using a more quantitative approach, social scientists test for racial bias in housing using correspondence studies in which researchers distribute identical fictitious responses to rental ads, which by design, differ only in the implied racial identity of the applicant. Absent any bias, an equal share of applicants in all groups should be responded to, and the time to response would be the same. Since differences in response times or gaps in callback rates cannot be ascribed to application differences, gaps must therefore indicate differential treatment, or bias.

Using this approach, several studies have found that emails from non-White applicants have slower response times and are less likely to receive a response at all. Carpusor and Loges (2006 ) randomly assigned White, African American, and Arab names to emails and found that “ African American and Arab names received significantly fewer positive responses than White names, and African American names fared worst of all .” Similar results are found for African American names by Hanson and Hawley (2011 ). [1] Similar to correspondence studies are audit studies or undercover tester studies that send actual applicants (trained actors) with near identical profiles from different groups. Using undercover testers of different races with similar financial profiles, a 2019 audit study  from Newsday analyzed over 5,700 house listings in Long Island NY (a high-opportunity and highly segregated suburban neighborhood) and found discrimination against Asians, Hispanics, and Blacks: 19, 39, and 49 percent of the time, respectively. Discrimination captured various forms of disparate treatment by agents, including refusing to provide house listings or home tours to minority testers unless they met financial qualifications that weren’t imposed on their White counterparts, directing Whites and minorities into differing communities (to match the demographics of the neighborhood), and showing White testers more listings than other testers. Other audit studies comparing equally qualified Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) and White Americans in rental and sales markets. AAPIs were told about 9.8 percent fewer available rental properties and were shown 6.6 percent fewer units than their White counterparts. The effects were even larger in the sales market, where AAPIs were told about 15.5 percent fewer available properties and were shown 18.8 percent fewer properties.

These behaviors have real effects on where people live. Recent studies find large Black-White response gaps and show how this behavior blocks Black families out of particular neighborhoods. One 2023 study finds that these gaps are larger in places with high-quality schools and few Black residents – reinforcing racial segregation and depriving Black renters access to high quality schools. Similarly, another recent study analyzed over 25,000 email interactions with landlords across the 50 largest US cities and found that African American and Hispanic renters often face discrimination and that the extent varies by region. The study also matches evidence on actual rental outcomes to show that this discrimination was likely a driver of increased segregation and intergenerational income gaps—underscoring that this racial bias leads to racial gaps in access to high-mobility neighborhoods with amenities that promote positive outcomes.

One paper uses these same data to estimate the welfare loss due to having limited choices. First, the paper documents that discrimination limits applicants’ access to neighborhoods with higher rent, better schools, and lower exposure to toxins. The authors then estimate a model of willingness to pay for these amenities and conclude that discrimination resulted in “ lost choices that these groups would be willing to pay significant sums to avoid. ” They conclude that discrimination—by limiting housing options—imposes damages between 3.5% and 4.4% of annual income for renters of color on average, and as high as 7% of income at income for African Americans making above $100,000 per year.” The authors note that this accounting of damages may be incomplete, and the approach may not include the potential intergenerational effects. However, the key takeaway is that the welfare implications are sizable. More generally, by impacting where families are able to live, these discriminatory actions impact access to local amenities, including access to schools, jobs, quality health care, a toxin-free environment, and transportation. Chetty et al. (2018 ) finds that some neighborhoods have a profound causal effect on the likelihood that a child from a low-income family is able to be a high earner as an adult: housing discrimination blocks minority children form taking advantage of these neighborhood-based opportunities. These factors impact the health and well-being of adults ( Chyn and Katz 2021 ) and impact the short- and long-run outcomes of their children.

Evidence of Racial Bias in Employment

While neighborhoods shape economic outcomes from an early age, a key determinant of economic well-being in adulthood is having a stable job with good pay. Thus, racial bias in employment has far-reaching implications for the well-being of those harmed. Based on the observed gaps, a typical Black worker in 2023 made about 12 percent less and was 2 percentage points less likely to be employed than a typical White worker of the same age, gender, education, and living in the same Census region. There are similar but somewhat smaller gaps for Hispanic workers. [2] As detailed below, research shows that these gaps for Black and Hispanic workers are, in part,due to discrimination.

As in housing, researchers test for racial bias in hiring using correspondence studies, in which researchers distribute identical fictitious resumes or job applications which, by design, differ only in the implied racial identity of the applicant. In one study published in 2004, resumes were sent out in response to help-wanted ads in Chicago and Boston newspapers. The authors randomly assigned some otherwise identical resumes with very White sounding names (such as Emily Walsh or Greg Baker) and others with very African American sounding names (such as Lakisha Washington or Jamal Jones). They find that the White sounding names “ receive 50 percent more callbacks for interviews. ” More recently, Kline et al. (2022 ) conducted a similar experiment with over 83,000 job applications sent to large Fortune 500 firms and find that callback rates were 9 percent less for the Black-sounding names, with much larger gaps from some specific employers. This basic result has been replicated by several researchers in a variety of settings, consistently finding a callback gap between 9 and 50 percent. [3] Looking systematically and over time, a recent meta-analysis of correspondence and audit studies (which send actors of different races to apply to jobs with identical qualifications) that also include Latino-Americans, finds an average Black-White callback gap of 36 percent and an average Latino-White callback gap of 24 percent. Looking at trends over time they find no change in the level of discrimination against African Americans since 1989, although they do find some suggestive evidence of declining discrimination against Latinos.

Looking beyond the callback stage, a recent summary of multiple audit studies found considerable additional discrimination. In their data, majority applicants with very similar qualifications received 53% more callbacks than comparable minority (e.g., Black, Hispanic, Middle Eastern) applicants, and 145% more job offers than comparable minority applicants – indicating that the gaps in callbacks understate gaps in the likelihood of receiving a job offer. The fact that minority applicants are less than half as likely to be offered a job than similarly qualified White applicants mechanically leads to elevated racial gaps in unemployment rates. It also reduces the bargaining power of Black and Hispanic workers relative to White workers, resulting in lower relative pay. The evidence clearly conveys that discrimination exists, and plays a key role in generating these racial gaps.

Evidence of Racial Bias in Access to Capital

Wealth is arguably a more robust measure of long-run economic well-being than income. Access to credit and capital markets is important for business creation and building wealth. A large literature studying the determinants of entrepreneurship finds strong evidence that insufficient capital and access to credit markets serve as one of the main barriers to entrepreneurship. For example, sudden increases in wealth, through bequests or lottery winnings , and increased access to bank financing through financial deregulation , increase entry into entrepreneurship. As such, differential access to capital by race can lead to racial gaps in business ownership in addition to other measures of wealth.

A 2022 report from the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee found that “ Black and Hispanic households are more likely than White households to be denied or not receive as much credit as requested when applying. ” While racial gaps in business ownership and homeownership (both strong predictors of wealth) have narrowed in the past three years under President Biden due to a rise in minority-owned business formation , gaps remain. Looking at raw gaps in 2022, only about 6 percent of Black and Hispanic households owned a business—compared to about 9 percent of White households. Homeownership rates in 2022 were 46 percent for Black households, 51 percent for Hispanic household, and 63 for Asian households – all below the 73 percent for White households. Also, the Black-White wealth gap has been between a massive 80-85 percent in recent decades ( Derenoncourt et al., 2024 ). As we summarize below, evidence indicates that present day discrimination in credit access plays a role for Black, Asian, and Hispanic borrowers.

Using the audit study approach and matching similar applicants of different races, one study conducted in 2017 finds that, compared to White business loan applicants, Black business loan applicants were asked to provide more financial and personal information, including marital status, which can be a violation of fair lending law . In addition, Black applicants were less likely to be offered to complete an application, offered a future appointment, or provided help in completing a loan application. These results have been replicated across different studies .

Recent research based on the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) program also found strong and compelling evidence of private-sector lending discrimination between 2020 and 2021. In an effort to support small business jobs, private lenders administered PPP loans that were federally guaranteed . The federal guarantee essentially eliminated a lender’s risk because the government repaid lenders if a business defaulted. Even so, one study showed that Black business owners were less likely to receive PPP loans compared to White business owners with similar application profiles (including similar credit histories, education, age, and business profile).

Finally, one 2023 study leverages a policy change to isolate evidence of discrimination by race in PPP lending. First, the study documents (as others do), that minority borrowers in general and Black-owned businesses in particular were less likely to receive PPP loans from small and mid-sized banks in settings where subjectivity (and thus bias) was most likely to influence lending decisions. Again, these racial gaps were found despite the fact that there was a federal guarantee largely eliminating risk to the lender. However, the study also found that these racial gaps (for Black, Asian, and Hispanic business owners relative to White business owners) shrank when processing procedures such as income and payroll verification were computer-automated rather than conducted by a bank employee. That is, when there was less scope for human decision-making, and all applications were treated equally irrespective of the race of the applicant, racial gaps in approved loans decreased.

Measuring Racial Bias, Either Explicit or Implicit

The previous section presented much evidence on racial gaps in situations where the only possible explanation was race itself. The compelling evidence of real-world racial disparities and discrimination has led many researches to explore and identify potential causes tied to underlying racial bias, either explicit or implicit. Social scientists often explore this possibility by examining whether racial disparities are more pronounced in regions with higher levels of racial bias. The theory that areas with stronger prejudice would exhibit larger racial disparities was proposed by Becker (1957) and is supported by empirical data.

We use measures of implicit and explicit bias that are used by researchers. Researches have employed varying measures of racial bias, including public opinion questions such as “Would you object to sending your kids to a school that had [a certain fraction of] Black students?” or “Do you agree that White people have the right to keep Black people out of their neighborhoods?” Other measures of bias include measures of local housing segregation , the number of hate crimes against various groups, racially-biased Google searches , and implicit and explicit bias tests . For purposes of the analysis here, we use two of these established measures of bias. One is a measure of implicit bias that comes from Implicit Association Test (IAT) scores ( Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji, 2003 ). This measures subconscious biases that individuals have towards various groups of people. It is based on the speed at which respondents are able to associate positive words and concepts with Black versus White faces or the word “Black” versus “White.” We take geographic averages of this measure. Our second measure is a measure of explicit bias based on geographic variation in the prevalence of racially charged web searches ( Stephens-Davidowitz 2014 ).

Previous research shows that places with higher levels of these two measures of prejudice have larger racial wage gaps , racial mortality gaps , and fewer loans for Black-owned businesses. In what follows, we show that these measures predict geographic variation in the prevalence of discrimination. [4] Given the much larger research base for Black-White gaps, much (but not all) of this analysis is on Black-White gaps.

The Role of Bias in Racial Gaps in Access to Housing, Employment, and Lending

Looking at discrimination in housing, Figure 1 plots rankings of callback gaps (the difference between the callback rate for minority and non-minority applicants) for housing applications found in Christensen et al. (2021 ). The paper considers 50 large Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) and we order these places from largest to the smallest callback gaps. Lower numbers indicate larger racial callback gaps, with higher numbers indicating smaller gaps. The authors create callback gaps separately for Black applicants and Hispanic applicants. For this analysis, the CEA pulled information from their paper and linked each CBSA to the local measure of implicit and explicit bias described above, so that each dot in Figure 1 reflects a CBSA. The left panel in Figure 1 shows that going from an area with low explicit bias (10th percentile) to one with high bias (the 90th percentile) is associated with a CBSA being ranked about 18 places worse (i.e., a lower number) in terms of Black callback rates. The right panel in Figure 1 shows that going from an area with low to high implicit bias is associated with a CBSA being ranked about 14 places worse in terms of Hispanic callback rates. Put differently, going from a place with low to high explicit bias would reduce the callback rates of Blacks by about 14 percent relative to Whites, and going from a place with low to high bias implicit bias would reduce the callback rates of Hispanics by 7 percent relative to Whites. These patterns are clear: landlords are much more likely to treat inquiries for a rental differently by race in locations that exhibit a greater prevalence of both implicit and explicit racial bias.

Figure 2 plots the racial callback gap for job applications from Kline, Rose, and Walters (2022) , using the two measures of bias. Job applications are pooled by geography so that each dot reflects a Designated Media Area (DMA). Figure 2 plots the estimated job callback gaps against DMA average levels of racial bias. Importantly, measures of both explicit and implicit bias are associated with larger Black-White job callback gaps. The left panel in Figure 2 shows that going from a low to high explicit bias area (as defined above) is associated with about a 1 percentage point increase in the racial callback gap (or about a 11 percent increase from a baseline gap of 9 percent); the right panel shows that going from an area with low to high implicit bias leads to a similar increase in the gap. Put differently, going from the least to the most biased DMAs (6 standard deviations apart) is associated with a 2-percentage point difference in the callback rate, representing a 23 percent increase in the callback gap. What this means is that if Black and White applicants submitted identical applications, there would be 23 percent more callbacks among the White applications than the Black application in high versus low bias areas. That is, in places where people tend to exhibit bias against Black Americans (either in web searches or in how long it takes to associate a Black face with a positive word), employers are more likely to treat otherwise identical resumes with Black and White sounding names differently.

Looking at business access to financing in Figure 3, the CEA used information in Tables 3 and 5 from Howell et al. (2023) to understand how the same two measures of implicit and explicit bias impact being approved for a business loan. Recall that there were racial gaps in PPP lending even though they were federally guaranteed, thus largely eliminating credit risk as a factor in explaining differential lending by race. Also recall that these authors study the change in lending patterns by race after certain banks automated evaluation of loan applications.

The left panel in Figure 3 shows the percent change in PPP loans going to Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White business owners, after automating parts of the loan evaluation process. When human discretion was reduced, the racial gaps in lending fell. That is, the fraction of PPP loans going to Asian, Black, and Hispanic applicants rose and the fraction going to White applicants fell. Most notably, lending to Black business owners almost doubled.

The difference between the loan approval rate before and after automation across different groups is a measure of differential treatment by race due to human judgment. If these differences reflect bias-driven discrimination, one should expect that the effect of automation of payroll and income criteria would be largest in areas with more bias. This is precisely what the authors document. The right panel in Figure 3 shows how automation increased the fraction going to Black business owners overall and compared to areas with high implicit and explicit bias. Indeed, this panel shows that when banks automated processing of loan applications, Black businesses received 93 percent more loans in places with the least amount of bias, 134 percent more in places with high implicit bias, and 120 percent more in areas with high explicit bias. [5] In sum, as with employment and access to housing, racial disparities that can only be reasonably attributed to differential treatment because of race are most pronounced in geographic locations with greater levels of measured explicit and implicit racial bias.

Evidence in Other Areas

The evidence is clear that certain minority children are less likely to live in neighborhoods that have good schools , clean drinking water and clean air , and positive causal effects on upward mobility. As adults, many Americans from minority groups are less likely be called back for a job and attain good-paying employment, and less likely to gain access to much-needed capital to start a business or launch a new career than an otherwise identical White person. Furthermore, while not all evidence is experimental, there is compelling evidence of discrimination in many other important settings.

Ethnic minority home owners pay higher taxes than White homeowners in the same cities with similar homes, and they receive lower bids when selling items in online markets or selling their home . Black and Native American children are also more likely to receive substantiation and out-of-home placement decisions made by Child Protective Services, and Black children receive less attention from their teachers and instructors in online learning settings. Moreover, even when the teachers are randomly assigned, White teachers tend to rate Black students’ misbehavior more harshly than Black teachers . When stopped for speeding, Black and Hispanic drivers are less likely to have a ticket written for the lower speed threshold than White drivers, and more likely to be stopped when their race is more easily observed . In criminal justice, not only are there substantial sentencing gaps by race , but conditional on defendant traits and charges, research finds that incarceration rates are higher and sentences are longer in jurisdictions with a higher fraction of Black residents; the research concludes that confinement rates would fall by 15 percent if all jurisdictions adopted the sentencing of the most-White jurisdictions. Furthermore, there are large and important racial gaps in health. Even after accounting for socio-economic factors, Black women have a higher risk of maternal mortality than White women, life expectancy is shorter for Black Americans, and there is evidence that differential treatment by race plays a role . This is only a partial list, but the evidence is clear; an individual’s race still matters in myriad ways.

To combat explicit and implicit biases, several companies and organizations have put guardrails in place. For example, having managers voluntarily take diversity training can help reduce racial gaps in hiring. Direct recruiting on colleges can increase the hiring of minorities. Mentoring programs are effective at increasing the diversity of managers. Research has also shown that inviting non-managers to diversity and inclusion workshops can help organizations better identify points of conflict and possible resolutions. Working in teams as equals with co-workers of different ethnicities can lead to more equitable opportunity and promotion. In government, a new HUD policy requires certain lenders to allow borrowers to request a re-assessment of the appraised value of their property if they believe that the appraisal was inaccurate or biased. In sum, there are several ways for organizations to improve opportunity for less represented groups.

While challenges remain, Americans have made considerable progress since the 1960s in reducing many measures of overt racism and racial gaps in income, wealth, and educational attainment ( Donohue and Heckman, 1991 ; Center for Education Policy Analysis, 2017 ; Wolff, 2022 ; Kent and Ricketts, 2024 ). Even so, sizable discrimination from both explicit and implicit bias still exists today. The existence of contemporary discrimination motivates President Biden’s commitment to racial equity. As we show above, these biases are associated with important racial differences in a variety of domains that cannot be explained away by other factors and can only be reasonably attributed to racial bias. These data show that, in many ways, the structures and forces that necessitated civil rights legislation and a broader focus on racial equity still exist, and those same structural barriers continue to necessitate remedial action. Despite progress over the last sixty years, the evidence is clear that race continues to be a significant determinant of economic well-being in the lives of many Americans.

It is important to highlight that racial bias leads to racial gaps precisely in settings where the rules are race-neutral. Discrimination from bias is often prevalent whenever people have discretion, such as in calling back a job applicant or deciding whether to give a break to a speeding driver. [6] In such cases, the rules are race-neutral, but the application of the rules is not. Even if individuals making decisions may not have demonstrated explicit biases, their implicit biases may still impact their decisions. Indeed, in many of the examples above, measures of implicit bias are as predictive (and often more predictive) of discriminatory gaps as measures of explicit bias. The prevalence and effect of implicit bias shows the limitations of relying solely on race-neutral tools to advance equality of opportunity. In various contexts, the research suggests that race-conscious action may be necessary to truly achieve equality of opportunity for all Americans irrespective of race, creed, and color.

[1] Some studies indicate that these biases are most prevalent for Blacks who are not of high social status and for Hispanics who are portrayed as recent immigrants .

[2] Due to sample size constraints, we do not report such analysis for Asian Americans, but raw averages suggests that Asians, on average, earn more than their White counterparts. However, there is considerable heterogeneity within among Asian populations.

[3] Estimates of this callback gap: 9 percent , 14 percent , 23 percent , 36 percent , and 50 percent .

[4] We obtained job application microdata from the authors of Kline, Rose, and Walters (2022) ; we impute housing application estimates from Figure SM3.2 of Christensen et al. (2021 ); and we use PPP estimates from Tables 3 and 5 from Howell et al. (2023) .

[5] Places with more bias defined as two standard deviations more biased.

[6] However, algorithms may also exacerbate racial gaps if trained on data reflecting racial gaps .

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Discrimination and Harassment Case Study Analysis

• Post author: Stevens and McMillan Law Firm
• Post published: July 7, 2020
• Post category: Attorney Info

Case studies about discrimination in the workplace

In August of 2018, a young woman was hired to become the shipping manager for a small printing company. She is 26 years old, has a boyfriend that she is living with, and has plans to get married and have children, eventually. The general manager of the company was not included in resume selection, interview process, or the training of the young woman, but did do an initial welcome interview when she was hired. After he had met with her and had some time to get to know her a little bit, he was disgruntled at the human resources manager for hiring someone who would need time off for a wedding and for children sometime in the future. He approached the human resources manager and told her “Next time you decide to hire someone, hire a young able-bodied man so we don’t have to worry about him taking time off for personal reasons”. The tricky part in this scenario is that the general manager did not actually say these things to the female employee but to the female human resources manager. The comments that were said, made the female human resource manager uncomfortable because she too, may have a future situation like the one he is ridiculing the shipping manager for.

            This young woman was discriminated against since she was planning for her future as a wife and a mother. Regardless of her plans, or any female employed by the company, the discrimination took place because she is a woman, and once she decides to have children, she will need to utilize medical leave in order to give birth to her children. The human resources manager also shares in the same scenario, to which the GM has now openly given his criticism. The general manager in this case has decided that she would not be a good fit for the position because she will have weightlifting limitations and will have to take time off work. His comments and actions are sexist because he has already decided that she is not fit for the position for reasons that have not even happened yet.  The comments made by the manager could potentially be a serious liability for the company, and an immediate investigation must be done to determine whether or not legal action should be taken against him. According to a case settlement against the Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc. in 2015, The company continued to discriminate between 2006 thru 2014, whereas the company subjected countless women to sexual harassment and/or various forms of sex discrimination . Con Edison was blatantly discriminating against women Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, “This agreement sends a clear message to employers across New York State: All women, including those working in male-dominated workplaces, are entitled to equal justice under the law.” United States EEOC (Press Release 9-2015). Although this case is an extreme example, it gives a clear understanding of how the behavior of the general manager is unacceptable and will not be tolerated. This case is one of the thousands of different scenarios that continue to happen daily.  

Investigating Discriminatory Actions

            A case like the example shown is a lot easier to investigate because it was extreme discrimination and most of the circumstances were well documented. However, as shown by the amount of time that these women were given disparate treatment, it took many years to finally determine that Con Edison was engaging in illegal actions. The situation that is occurring with the new female shipping manager, as well as the human resources manager, will continually be more difficult to prove sexual discrimination, and senior management will have a difficult time trying to prove the blatant abuse of power by the general manager. According to a recent study, “researchers surveyed about 6,000 U.S. military employees, and in their findings, they showed that reporting incidents of harassment often triggered retaliation. Under such conditions, it’s no wonder that for many of these employees, the most “reasonable” thing to do was to avoid reporting.” (Dessler, G., 2016). At this point, the shipping manager is not aware of the statements made by the GM, but the comments made by him have put the human resources manager in an uncomfortable position, as the comments that were made could potentially be directed at her in the near future as well.

In situations such as this, employers are legally obligated to investigate complaints (harassment, discrimination, retaliation , safety, and ethics) in a timely manner. In addition, any appropriate corrective action is required to be taken by the employer to ensure illegal actions and behaviors cease immediately. (SHRM, 2018). One major problem with this case is that it has yet to happen. The comments made by the general manager have not come into play yet, but if and or when it does, he will have violated the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978. This law was put in place in order to protect women’s rights in the workforce. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, therefore, “Women affected by a pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions shall be treated the same for all employment-related purposes, including receipt of benefits under fringe benefit programs, as other persons not so affected but similar in their ability or inability to work”. (EEOC, 1978).  

The human resources department has been put in place to ensure that all employees are treated fairly and equally, and to make sure that equal opportunity employment always occurs. The role of human resources management involves documentation of employee grievances, terminations, absences, performance reports, timekeeping of vacation and sick time, and compensation and benefits information. When any type of sexual discrimination or harassment happens, it is typically reported to the HR administration. In this case, however, the HR manager has been indirectly discriminated against, so an outside investigator should be.

Author: Sarah Hendriksen from West Valley City

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This post has 2 comments.

What is the difference between discrimination and harassment?

Discrimination is when someone treats you differently because of certain characteristics. These characteristics could include race, color and national origin as well as religion.

Harassment is unwelcome behavior and can sometimes be illegal. Harassment can include something said, written, or physical contact. They create a hostile atmosphere and are deliberate in their acts.

Comments are closed.

Real Life Examples of Discrimination in the Workplace

It’s difficult to believe that today, in the 21st century, discrimination is still a major issue, but as much as we would like to think that we live in a world full of peace, harmony and widespread acceptance, this just sadly isn’t the case. 

In fact, more than 25% of workers in the UK have reported having experienced workplace discrimination in some form, according to a study conducted by Sky to mark National Inclusion Week in 2018 which identified that prejudice towards gender, race and age remains fairly commonplace in UK businesses. 

That self-same study recognised that a youth-driven revolution could be underway to counteract this outdated way of thinking as ‘Generation Z’ – the under 25s population – are twice as likely to feel that employers should do more to promote inclusion in the workplace compared to the baby boomers of the workforce (the over 55s). 

Cases of Discrimination in the Workplace

If that is the case, we are looking at the potential for a very happy future in terms of where the world stands on discrimination, but it would seem that with over a quarter of the UK’s working population still admitting to being subject to such prejudice, that we have a long way to go before we get there, as you can see from the cases below. 

Starbucks Dyslexia Case

Starbucks employee Meseret Kumulchew was accused of fraud as her employer claimed she was falsifying documents after she mistakenly entered incorrect information when recording fridge temperatures in a duty roster. As a result, she was given lesser duties, taking away vital parts of her supervisor position and was told she needed to retrain before she could continue with those responsibilities which made up the job she loves.

In an interview, Meseret expressed that she was made to feel like a fraud and was on the verge of wanting to end her life. The only thing that held her back was the thought of her children. 

Meseret took Starbucks to an employment tribunal for disability discrimination as she stated that she had been upfront with her employees from the start, telling them that she was Dyslexic which means that she has difficulties with reading, writing and telling the time. She also advised them that she is a visual learner, meaning that she needs to be physically shown how to complete a task in order to learn. 

The tribunal found that Starbucks failed to make reasonable adjustments for Meseret and had discriminated against her due to the effects of her Dyslexia. It was also found that she was victimised by her employer and that there appeared to be little or no knowledge or understanding of equality issues within the business. 

Richemont Race Discrimination Case

Cheryl Spragg, an employee of Richemont (UK), which owns luxury brands including Cartier and Montblanc, was spied on by her employer, denied the opportunity to progress within the company and was bullied by HR and other staff members as a result of her skin colour.

Following a back injury, Richemont placed Cheryl under close surveillance for a number of days, following her to a wedding and even receiving images of her home and garden. Undoubtedly, this act was unnerving, intimidating and upsetting for her. 

Cheryl was also refused internal progression on the basis that she was black and had applied for the same post on three different occasions, with all three of the recruitment decisions being made by the same people. It was found that the company had a preference for white Europeans and the judge ruling in Cheryl’s claim against race discrimination in the workplace agrees that this was an act of direct discrimination since there was a lack of transparency and properly structured processes for scoring, marking and record-keeping as well as a complete absence of interview records. The HR team had no equality and diversity training and there were no black staff members at a senior level or on the HR team. 

In addition, Cheryl had been subject to bullying when other staff members refused to enter a lift with her which was found as a violation of her dignity. These employees were said to have laughed and pulled faces when Cheryl held the lift door open for them – they walked straight passed and waited for another lift to come. This incident meets the very definition of harassment under the Equality Act 2010 .  

When Cheryl complained to the HR department about the various events which she considered to be discriminatory, she was told to look for a new job and was accused of causing her colleagues distress. She was even told in an email from the HR team that she wasn’t the only ‘black member of staff’ within her team and no other racism allegations had been raised in the past. 

After the judge heard Cheryl’s case and considered the evidence, she won her claim and was awarded compensation for the traumatic and humiliating experience. 

ONS Sex Discrimination Case

Macro-economics specialist, Olwen Renowden, found herself a victim of sex discrimination when she was refused for two open positions at a grade six level by ONS – a role she was more than suitable for, holding professional credentials from some of the world’s most prestigious macro-economics employers such as the Bank of England and the IMF.

It was noted early on by Olwen that the company employed no female economists at grade six level, despite a headcount of over one hundred; and the posts that she and another female candidate (also more than qualified for the role) had applied for were both filled by male applicants – both of whom were young, inexperienced and had never worked at a grade six level prior to their appointment, let alone a specialism in macro-economics.

An additional vacancy was created for employees who had passed the grade six promotion board; however, this was only ever made available to male prospects – female candidates were not offered the same opportunity. 

Olwen raised a grievance but, unfortunately, her appeal was not upheld and she subsequently resigned from ONS. She refused to back down though, and applied to the Employment Tribunal with her case in January 2019 where is was agrees that favouritism was shown towards male staff. What’s more, the tribunal found that those who should have addressed the issue failed to do so, leading to the conclusion that the approach to gender balance pointed towards a culture where discrimination and, in particulat, sex discrimination, is not properly understood by those who are required to ensure its elimination. 

The tribunal found that Owlen’s claims of sex discrimination were successful and the ONS was ordered to pay compensation and interest. 

More about Workplace Discrimination

Here are only a small handful of cases of discimination in the workplace that have occurred in recent years; however, there are a host of other examples which you can view by simply doing a Google search for cases of discrimination in the workplace. 

I think we can all agree that cases like this shouldn’t be making the news. Not because they shouldn’t be reported – while discrimination is a problem, it should always be made known – but because stories like these shouldn’t be happening in the first place; and if you’ve been reading through the cases in this post in horror, hoping that nobody on your payroll is being made to feel discriminated against – or even the ones being prejudice – never fear. Read more about workplace discrimination and how you can combat it as an employer in our post Types of Discrimination in the Workplace . 

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US Marshals Service settles discrimination case with Black workers

The U.S. Marshals Service agreed to pay $15 million settlement and will amend its hiring and promotion processes to settle a lawsuit initially filed 30 years ago that alleged discrtimination against Black employees.

The class action alleged that the service discriminated against hundreds of African American deputy marshals and corrections officers in hirings, headquarters assignments and promotions since 1994, according to a summary from Sanford Heisler Sharp, LLP, the employment law firm handling the case. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission approved the settlement, marking this case one of the longest-running racial discrimination class actions in U.S. history.

The settlement requires that the Marshals Service implement DEI and implicit bias training and change the hiring process to promote transparency and objectivity within the agency’s hiring, promotion and headquarters assignments processes.

“We’re really thrilled that we finally get to resolve this case and we think it’s a good resolution for our class members,” Christine Dunn, an attorney representative on the case, said to Federal Times. “And, you know, most importantly, I think, is that there will be changes at the Marshals Service, and that has power to positively impact future generations of deputy U.S. marshals.”

Dunn said the Marshals Service will have to give periodic updates on their progress so the law firm can be sure they are making the required changes listed in the settlement.

Class members on the case include 700 African American current and former deputy marshals who allegedly experienced racial discrimination in promotions and headquarters assignments and thousands of African Americans who were allegedly denied hire. Class members that will receive part of the settlement are those who submitted a claim form and were found eligible for monetary compensation.

“It’s been a really long road,” Dunn said. “This case has been going on for 30 years and it feels really wonderful to finally be able to get justice for our class members who have been fighting for a really long time.”

The Marshals Service has denied any wrongdoing on their part throughout the litigation process, according to a USMS press release .

Dunn said class members have already submitted claims for monetary compensation, but before the Marshals Service can release the money owed, those who objected to the settlement during the objection period can appeal within 30 days now that it was approved by the court. She said only a small number of class members objected to the settlement.

She said the objections or appeals would have to be “global,” meaning based on that the settlement itself was unfair, unreasonable or inadequate. For an appeal to be granted, it would depend on if it could be fixed or if it could blow up the settlement, Dunn said.

“I don’t think that an appeal will likely carry much weight, you know, the objections,” Dunn said. “The judge dealt with pretty extensively in her order and why she doesn’t believe they have any merit. So, I would hope that an appellate court would also agree with her on that.”

Dunn said the compensation received depends on everyone’s circumstances because some may have been passed up for more promotions than others, for example. The settlement will be disbursed in a pro rata format, which means a proportional allocation of the funds.

She said it was frustrating to see the delays in the case, especially since some class members passed along the way before able to see justice and receive their monetary compensation.

“That has been one of the hardest parts for me of this case is just seeing justice delayed and for so many people, they will ever get to experience the justice of this case,” Dunn said.

Cristina Stassis is an editorial fellow for Defense News and Military Times, where she covers stories surrounding the defense industry, national security, military/veteran affairs and more. She is currently studying journalism and mass communication and international affairs at the George Washington University.

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Education | Lawsuit challenges affirmative action in hiring…

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Education | Lawsuit challenges affirmative action in hiring at Northwestern law school

The complaint comes just more than a year after the Supreme Court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions, and it is expected to be among the first in a wave of new lawsuits that challenge how American universities hire and promote professors.

The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, says that the process of hiring professors at American universities has become “a cesspool of corruption and lawlessness.” It says Northwestern has deliberately sidelined white male candidates for faculty positions, giving preference to candidates of other races and gender identities.

Representatives of the law school did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The complaint, filed by a group calling itself Faculty, Alumni and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences, named several candidates for teaching jobs at Northwestern, including well-known legal scholars, who it said were denied interviews or blocked from advancing.

“For decades, left-wing faculty and administrators have been thumbing their noses at federal anti-discrimination statutes and openly discriminating on account of race and sex when appointing professors,” the complaint says. “They do this by hiring women and racial minorities with mediocre and undistinguished records over white men who have better credentials, better scholarship and better teaching ability.”

Members of the group are not named in the complaint, but the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Jonathan F. Mitchell, is a former Texas solicitor general turned activist litigator for conservative causes. He is joined by Gene P. Hamilton, general counsel of America First Legal Foundation, which bills itself as a conservative answer to the much deeper-pocketed ACLU.

The complaint’s sweeping approach suggests that the group wants to explicitly position itself as a successor to Students for Fair Admissions, the group that sued universities on behalf of Asian American students who said they had been discriminated against when applying to colleges.

A year ago, those complaints led the Supreme Court to ban affirmative action in college admissions.

This article originally appeared in  The New York Times .

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Opinion: As conservatives target same-sex marriage, its power is only getting clearer

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It’s been two years since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Dobbs case that overturned the federal right to an abortion, and the troubling concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas in which he expressed a desire to “revisit” other landmark precedents, including the freedom to marry for same-sex couples, codified nationally by the Obergefell Supreme Court decision, nine years ago Wednesday

Since that ruling, the LGBTQ+ and allied community has done much to protect the fundamental freedom to marry — passing the Respect for Marriage Act in Congress in 2022; sharing their stories this year to mark the 20th anniversary of the first state legalization of same-sex marriages, in Massachusetts; and in California , Hawaii and Colorado launching ballot campaigns to repeal dormant but still-on-the-books anti-marriage constitutional amendments.

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This winter, I worked with a team at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law to survey nearly 500 married LGBTQ+ people about their relationships. Respondents included couples from every state in the country; on average they had been together for more than 16 years and married for more than nine years. Sixty-two percent married after the court’s 2015 Obergefell marriage decision, although their relationships started before before that. More than 30% of the couples had children and another 25% wanted children in the future.

One finding that jumped out of the data: Almost 80% of married same-sex couples surveyed said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about the Obergefell decision being overturned. Around a quarter of them said they’d taken action to shore up their family’s legal protections — pursuing a second-parent adoption, having children earlier than originally planned or marrying on a faster-than-expected timeline — because of concerns about marriage equality being challenged. One respondent said, “We got engaged the day that the Supreme Court ruled on the Dobbs decision and got married one week after.”

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As we examined the survey results, it became clearer than ever why LGBTQ+ families and same-sex couples are fighting so hard to protect marriage access — and the answer is really quite simple: The freedom to marry has been transformative for them. It has not only granted them hundreds of additional rights and responsibilities, but it has also strengthened their bonds in very real ways.

Nearly every person surveyed (93%) said they married for love; three-quarters added that they married for companionship or legal protections. When asked how marriage changed their lives, 83% reported positive changes in their sense of safety and security, and 75% reported positive changes in terms of life satisfaction. “I feel secure in our relationship in a way I never thought would be possible,” one participant told us. “I love being married.”

The evolution of same-sex marriage

I’ve been studying LGBTQ+ people and families for my entire career — and even still, many of the findings of the survey touched and inspired me.

Individual respondents talked about the ways that marriage expanded their personal family networks, granting them (for better and worse!) an additional set of parents, siblings and loved ones. More than 40% relied on each other’s families of origin in times of financial or healthcare crisis, or to help out with childcare. Some told of in-laws who provided financial assistance to buy a house, or cared for them while they were undergoing chemotherapy for cancer.

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And then there was the effect on children. Many respondents explained that their marriage has provided security for their children, and dignity and respect for the family unit. Marriage enabled parents to share child-rearing responsibilities — to take turns being the primary earner (and carrying the health insurance), and spending more time at home with the kids.

The big takeaway from this study is that same-sex couples have a lot on the line when it comes to the freedom to marry — and they’re going to do everything possible to ensure that future political shifts don’t interfere with their lives. As couples across the country continue to speak out, share their stories — and in California, head to the ballot box in November to protect their hard-earned freedoms — it’s clear to me that it’s because they believe wholeheartedly, and with good reason, that their lives depend on it.

Abbie E. Goldberg is an affiliated scholar at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and a psychology professor at Clark University, where she directs the women’s and gender studies.

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