2020 has been a year of global pandemic, massive lockdowns, wildfires that have ravaged land, and a resurgence of civil rights protests due to police brutality. The Black Lives Matter movement has been in the media spotlight once again while speaking out against the unjust treatment of black people after the death of George Floyd, but sadly, unjust treatment and racism does not begin and end with the police force. It happens in the workplace as well. Racial biases occur more often than we care to admit even with the policies such as Affirmative Action in place. Unintentional and intentional microaggressions against people of color, the idea of of hiring employees who demonstrate the most productivity based on typical skin color and privileged backgrounds, and being uneducated on what biases there are in the workplace have all been factors that have historically kept people of color in a never ending cycle of lack of resources and jobs. Knowledge is power, and in this case, research has to be done and internalized in order to break this cycle. In this podcast, we will explore what biases in the workplace look like in practice, how they are perpetuated, possible solutions, and arguments against Affirmative Action.
Day, John Cocchi. “Retelling the Story of Affirmative Action: Reflections on a Decade of
Federal Jurisprudence in the Public Workplace.” California Law Review, vol. 89, no. 1,
2001, pp. 59-128.
Graber, Mark A. “Subtraction by Addition?: The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments.”
Colombia Law Review, vol. 112, no. 7, 2012, pp. 15011-1550.
Kang, Sonia K., et al. “Whited Resumes: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market.”
Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 61, no. 3, 2016, pp. 469-502.
Kretschmer, David. “Labor Market Underrepresentation Results in Minority Discrimination: A
Dynamic Hiring Model with Employer Learning.” The Journal of Mathematical
Sociology, vol. 42, no.2, 2018, pp. 83-112.
Lowe, Travis Scott and Michael Wallace. “Occupational Race Segregation, Globalization, and
White Advantage: White-Black Earnings Inequality in U.S. Metropolitan Areas.”
Sociological Spectrum, vol. 37, no. 6, 2017, pp. 353-370.
Race/ Color Discrimination. www.eeoc.gov/racecolor-discrimination.
Shoshana, Avihu. “The Language of Everyday Racism and Microaggression in the Workplace:
Palestinian Professionals in Israel.” Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 39, no. 6, 2016, pp.
1052-1069.
Taylor, Marylee C. “White Backlash to Workplace Affirmative Action: Peril or Myth?” Social
Forces, vol. 73, no. 4, 1995, pp. 1385-1414.