Names are really powerful. The same is true of email addresses; how many people here can honestly say that they would treat an email from purpledinosaur28@aol.com the same way as they treat an email from john.smith@gmail.com?
The researchers also found that although high-quality
"white" candidates were preferred to low-quality "white"
candidates, the relative quality of "black" CVs made no
difference whatsoever. It was as if employers saw three
categories - high-quality white, low-quality white and
black candidates.
So on what basis were the employers choosing the black candidates on the occasions that they did choose a black candidate? Randomly?
It's a big anomaly in the experiment I think, and should be explained somehow.
Using the names suggested by the article, suppose Tyrone is a high-quality black candidate and Latoya is a low-quality black candidate. The experiment shows that employers--when they do choose a "black" candidate--will choose Tyrone and Latoya equally often.
The employer supposedly has no preference for the better CV among the black applicants.
Does that make any sense to you?
It makes me suspicious of the whole experiment.
Because they had a black name that is the first and only label they get.
The employers were not merely classifying people into groups, they wanted to actually hire someone.
If in the employer's mind, all black applicants were bad, the employer would hire a white applicant, or wouldn't hire anyone, or would keep looking.
But that's not what happened. Sometimes the employer called one of the black applicants for an interview. Even if the employer thought that all the black applicants were bad, the logical thing to do would be to go through the CVs again to try to discern some differences in the pool of black applicants before you waste time on an interview.
But the experiment says that the employers found all black applicants to be equally bad.
Then my question is: On what basis did the employer pick the black applicant to call for an interview?
It's as if the employer is saying, "We prefer to interview the best white applicants. Sometimes we interview a black applicant, but in those cases good or bad doesn't matter -- we'll interview a random black applicant."
It doesn't add up. Either the experiment is flawed or there is a subtle explanation for this anomaly.
And I think all you need for evidence that this is true is ... this study! The failure of an employer to interview enough black candidates is considered by many to be prima facie evidence of racism. (Just look at the comments here. Likewise, giving more failing grades to black students is racist.) So-many people are desperate to avoid looking racist, and black students/employees/etc. get a lot of little advantages as a result. Some of these are harmless (well performing black guy gets first crack at a new position, rather than well performing white guy), but some of them aren't (now-poorly-performing black guy doesn't get fired/demoted from new position).
Or everybody's racist.
Focusing on the name, which the person can't control, instead of on the person's accomplishments (resume), which the person can absolutely control, would seem to be an indicator of bias.
I don't think your point holds up.
And sure, it would be better to ignore names and focus on a resume -- but people rely on subconscious cues all the time. If your only goal is to find good candidates as quickly as possible, a subconscious cue which is usually correct works to your advantage -- whether it's "people with degrees from Harvard are stuck-up snobs", "people who write their resumes in LaTex are good coders", or "people with weird names like 'jewyl' are useless".
There's a point where the cost of gathering information exceeds its value. Unfortunately, that point sometimes comes halfway through reading a resume.
To me it just sounds like racism covered up.
First thing we all need to do is be willing to flat out admit our own faults without any rationalizations. That's the only way we'll ever be able to overcome it.
It is well known that you can put whatever name on your resume you want. It is not until after you are hired that you have to submit documentation.
There is a freakonomics discussion about the power of name choice in "Super Freakonomics", CH6, "Perfect Parenting, Part II; or: Would a Roshanda by Any Other Name Smell as Sweet?" which hints at this ~ http://freakonomicsbook.com/freakonomics/chapter-excerpts/ch... and http://www.slate.com/id/2116449/ though the message I got was the signaling the name gave to others & the recipient of the name mattered more.
Latoya and Tyrone are common black names, and they're also strongly associated with lower socioeconomic level because lots of blacks are in a lower socioeconomic level. The sorts of professional, educated black families that send their kids to good schools and from there to good jobs don't name them these lower-class names.
Edit: just to explain a bit more: my point is that Tyrone and Latoya are not indicative of lower class, any more than simply being black is. Thus a bias against those names is a bias against black in general.
I'd bet you'd see a similar bias against lower-class white names like Bubba or Leroy or most of the names here: http://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/forum/topic88623.ht...
If it is purely economic, you probably also wouldn't see as much bias against black-sounding names that don't have negative connotations such as Michael Jackson (it might get a smirk, but if it is indeed about economic bias, the name of a prestigious black man should be a good demonstration).
Lets take this a bit further. For your resume to not be biased against from the start, you have to not have a "typical" black name; essentially erasing any indication of your race from your resume. How is that not a bias against the race?
You guys are seriously straining logic here.
You are forgetting one not-so-minor fact that the resumes were _identical_ to the white ones'. Are you saying that the recipients just looked at the names and didn't even bother to read the resumes??
Fighting one's prejudices is really hard.
it's not about race in this case, but assuming --even if with the back of the mind, how the candidate would fit into the cultural aspect of the organization.
Imagine a guy in a organization that has a heavy crunch time every friday until late if needed. in the several interviews when he mention that, he noticed that the group of people that turn down the position because of this is of some cultural group. The next time he is hiring, even if only on the back of his mind, he will go past the candidates that have names indicating that said cultural group, because his brain will fast forward to all the time wasted interviewing and then being turned down. it's not like the guy has anything against that group.
In the article, the point made is far worse than this example. From a moral point of view. as it hints to a macro-social preconception on race.