summer 2002 contexts 13is job discrimination dead?feature article cedric herringIn November 1996, Texaco settled a case for $176 millionwith African-American employees who charged that the com-pany systematically denied them promotions. Texaco original-ly vowed to fight the charges. When irrefutable evidencesurfaced, however, Texaco changed its position. The New YorkTimesreleased a tape recording of several Texaco executivesreferring to black employees as “niggers” and “black jellybeans” who would stay stuck at the bottom of the bag.Texaco also ultimately acknowledged that they used two pro-motion lists—a public one that included the names of blacksand a secret one that excluded all black employee names. The$176 million settlement was at the time the largest amountever awarded in a discrimination suit.Much has changed in American race relations over the past50 years. In the old days, job discrimination against AfricanAmericans was clear, pervasive and undeniable. There were“white jobs” for which blacks need not apply, and there were“Negro jobs” in which no self-respecting white person wouldbe found. No laws prohibited racial discrimination in employ-ment. Indeed, in several states laws required separation ofblacks and whites in virtually every public realm. Not only wasracial discrimination the reality of the day, but also manywhites supported the idea that job discrimination againstblacks was appropriate. In 1944, 55 percent of whites admit-ted to interviewers that they thought whites should receivepreference over blacks in access to jobs, compared with only3 percent who offered such opinions in 1972. Many blatant forms of racism have disappeared. Civilrights laws make overt and covert acts of discrimination ille-gal. Also, fewer Americans admit to traditional racist beliefsthan ever before. Such changes have inspired many scholarsand social commentators to herald the “end of racism” andto declare that we have created a color-blind society. Theypoint to declines in prejudice, growth in the proportion ofblacks who hold positions of responsibility, a closing of theearnings gap between young blacks and young whites andother evidence of “racial progress.”However, racial discrimination in employment is still wide-spread; it has just gone underground and become moresophisticated. Many citizens, especially whites who have neverPolitical and legal debate in recent years has focused on whether discrimination in favor of African Americans is justified.What receives less attention is that employment discrimination against African Americans, though illegal, is still alive and wellin America.Craft worker at Nelli’s Shirt and Zipper Repair—secondary sector jobs offer low pay with few benefits,even for skilled African Americans.Photo by Elizabeth M. Hall, courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Societycontexts summer 200214experienced such treatment, find it hard to believe that suchdiscriminatory behavior by employers exists. Indeed, 75 per-cent of whites in a 1994 survey said that whites were likely tolose a job to a less-qualified black. Nevertheless, clear and con-vincing evidence of discriminatory patterns against black jobseekers exists.In addition to the landmark Texaco case, other corporategiants have made the dishonor roll in recent years. In 2000, acourt ordered Ford Motor Company to pay $9 million to victimsof sexual and racial harassment. Ford also agreed to pay $3.8million to settle another suit with the U.S. Labor Departmentinvolving discrimination in hiring women and minorities atseven of the company’s plants. Similarly in 1999, Boeing agreedto pay $82 million to end racially based pay disparities at itsplants. In April 2000, Amtrak paid $16 million to settle a racediscrimination lawsuit that alleged Amtrak had discriminatedagainst black employees in hiring, promotion, discipline andtraining. And in November 2000, the Coca-Cola Company set-tled a federal lawsuit brought by black employees for morethan $190 million. These employees accused Coca-Cola oferecting a corporate hierarchy in which black employees wereclustered at the bottom of the pay scale, averaging $26,000 ayear less than white workers.The list of companies engaged in discrimination againstblack workers is long and includes many pillars of Americanindustry, not just marginal or maverick firms. Yet when inci-dents of discrimination come into public view, many of us arestill mystified and hard-pressed for explanations. This is so, inpart, because discrimination has become so illegitimate thatcompanies expend millions of dollars to conceal it. They havemanaged to discriminate without using the blatant racism ofthe old days. While still common, job discrimination againstblacks has become more elusive and less apparent.how common?Most whites think that discriminatory acts are rare and sen-sationalized by a few high-profile cases and that the nation iswell on its way to becoming a color-blind society. Accordingto a 2001 Gallup survey, nearly 7 in 10 whites (69 percent) saidthat blacks are treated “the same as whites” in their local com-munities. The numbers, however, tell a different story.Annually, the federal government receives about 80,000 com-plaints of employment discrimination, and another 60,000cases are filed with state and local fair employment practicescommissions. One recent study found that about 60 percentof blacks reported racial barriers in their workplace in the lastyear, and a 1997 Gallup survey found that one in five report-ed workplace discrimination in the previous month.The results of “social audits” suggest that the actual fre-quency of job discrimination against blacks is even higher thanblacks themselves realize. Audit studies test for discriminationby sending white and minority “job seekers” with compara-ble resumés and skills to the same hiring firms to apply for thesame job. The differential treatment they receive provides ameasure of discrimination. These audits consistently find thatemployers are less likely to interview or offer jobs to minorityapplicants. For example, studies by the Fair EmploymentPractices Commission of Washington, D.C., found that blacksface discrimination in one out of every five job interviews andthat they are denied job offers 20 percent of the time. A sim-ilar study by the Urban Institute matched equally qualifiedwhite and black testers who applied for the same jobs inChicago. About 38