Inherent Discrimination
Throughout history, the US has experienced many hindrances in the ways we treat minorities, people of different nationalities, and women. Although laws and legislations have been implemented to prevent discriminatory tendencies in everyday life, or at least we'd like to think so, these judgmental tendencies are more commonly seen in the workplace, where it is not as strongly regulated to deny hiring someone of a certain race, gender, or nationality. We must change these ingrained ideas of discrimination in order for us to move forward as a country. America, founded by patriarchy and known for its poor race relations, has begun to demonize other nationalities, immigrants, and religions due to circumstances in the world right now and our ongoing problem with illegal immigration. We've come a long way, but I truly hope we are not receding back to more violent and discriminatory times, and we continue to work towards a more accepting and nonjudgmental society, most importantly in the workplace. The lingering problem of discrimination, although having been addressed by the American government, has so far gone unresolved in the workplace. Discrimination runs rampant during the hiring process and work time regarding race, gender, and nationality; this needs to be changed.
To begin with, racism at the work place has been and increasingly reported issue since 1992. In fiscal year 1992, EEOC received 374 charges alleging discrimination based on color. By fiscal year 2006, that number had increased to 1,241 charges. More and more ways of discrimination have also emerged making numbers continue to increase. America has to work on more ways of preventing and stopping current workplace discrimination. It has become so ingrained in society that people may not even notice when it is happening. Also, some employers have thought of ways to exclude people in a very discreet manner. Things like criteria screening and video resumes which can exclude people that are not able to access computers and video cameras.
Furthermore, researchers produced 24 studies with 30 estimates of discrimination for black and Latino Americans, collectively representing more than 54,000 applications submitted for more than 25,000 positions. They concluded that, on average, “white applicants receive 36% more callbacks than equally qualified African Americans” while “white applicants receive on average 24% more callbacks than Latinos.” This shows that even up to recent years, discrimination is a large problem in American jobs. Thousands of people may be getting denied work, even with more qualifications than someone that is not a minority. With all the studies that have been done and information gathered, America has to work on fixing the racial issues innthe workplace.
Although there have been some changes made in American jobs, like creating Human Resources departments, still more needs to be done. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (1964, 1991) declared that employers must maintain a workplace free of discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, or national origin. The laws and legislation created against discrimination at the work place have been to easily avoided and may be outdated. Hence, new legislation may be needed in order to properly protect the rights of all citizens, bringing the acts of exclusion in jobs to a permanent halt. In 2017 a study by Northwestern University, Harvard, and the Institute for Social Research in Norway was conducted and showed that hiring discrimination has not changed since at least 1989 all the way through 2015. Also, Sixty four percent of Americans say that racism still exists today and remains a major issue.
To conclude, discrimination in the work place is still such a bug issue after way too long in America. The government has made attempts that weren’t enough to stop it. Employers have been able to think of new ways to eliminate certain people from positions based on their race. Even though people report discrimination during the hiring process, it is very hard to prove. Therefore there should be more legislation made and checks conducted that will prevent employers from being able to use other methods to keep minorities out of jobs.
(EEOC-https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/initiatives/e-race/e-race-facts.cfm)
(Michigan State University- Appearing in M. A. Paludi, C. A. Paludi Jr., & E. DeSouza (Eds.), Praeger Handbook on Understanding and Preventing Workplace Discrimination. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers. Released December 2010)
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