Lecture Discrimination Flashcards
What are the two big categories of discrimination?
Individual discrimination: a person denying someone something (such as a job) based on race, this is an intentional thing
Institutional discrimination: more subtle, indirect, complex
“ostensibly racially neutral mechanism produces a discriminatory outcome” it perpetuates the effects of discrimination in one time/domain to another time/domain
one time period to another time period
Grandfather clause
created in the south when black people were eligible to vote that created a new law saying you are eligible to vote as long as your grandfather was eligible to vote
What is complex about institutional racism?
mechanism appears to not be discrimination but neutral
can be not intentional
goes from one domain and one time to another domain and another time
examples of change in domain: company only hires those with masters degree but out of all masters degrees 7% go to latinos
examples of change in time:
some companies fire first who they hired last and maybe the started not being racist later on so now all the minorities are being fired first
or
grandfather laws
When did the courts start recognizing institutional discrimination?
Griggs v. Duke Power Co. in 1971
the duke power company used to give good jobs to white people and when discrimination on the basis of race became illegal they changed the requirements of those jobs to having a high school diploma in order to not allow black applicants
the supreme court ruled that underrepresention can be taken at face value as discrimination
previously the courts only recognized individual racism which required an intent this new law established that the outcome alone could prove discrimination
What is the Griggs 3 step procedure?
- Plaintiff shows evidence of underrepresentation of a group
- Employer: the criterion is a “business necessity” (link to qualifications, productivity)
- Plaintiff provides an alternative criterion that will not have disparate (discriminatory) impact
What is the significance of the Griggs 3 step procedure?
It was the first time there was legal recognition of institutional discrimination
Differential treatment vs. Disparate impact
Differential treatment: individual actions
Disparate impact: you’re not necessarily intending to discriminate but the polices or procedures that you follow at work, universities etc. are discrimination - have harder impact on some groups than others
What is Galtung’s Violence/conflict Triangle
Galtung made point that there is more than one type of violence/conflict
we have not made peace until all of the pieces are dealt with
Direct conflict: bloodshed
Structural violence: social arrangements (education, housing) that prevent people form achieving full potential (discrimination)
Cultural conflict: all the ways we dehumanize each other, such as stereotyping
all of these reinforce the others
What are some of the ways that researchers measure discrimination?
residual approach
self-report studies
experimental studies
audit studies
Residual Approach to measuring discrimination
Wilson et al (1995) black males 70% more likely to be unemployed
the more educated the more likely to have unemployment gap
Gould (2020) black workers are paid ~15% less than whites
Gould concludes that black workers can not educate their way out of the gap
Tomaskovic- Devey et al. (2005): black males spend significantly more time looking for a job
What is the problem with the residual approach?
are we measuring everything? and measuring it correctly?
ex. we measuring education in years or diplomas earned but we can’t account for quality of education for example standford vs. community college
Self-Report Studies (measuring discrimination)
Kirscheman & Neckerman (1991) says that white employer’s views of inner city black men factor in class (dress, language)
What is the problem with self-report studies?
think about how the social desirability factor will limit what people will say to you, controls
Self report study by Harry Holser included things about
the last worker hired; what procedures did you use to hire your most recent employee
People can also self-report as victims of discrimination? Give one example
Li & Dong (2017) Chinese/Americans age 60+: 20% reported discrimination, and those were more likely to experience depression
those who were more advantaged were more likely to report being discriminated against - this could have been because the ones who were more well off understood discrimination better, lived somewhere else, etc.
Experimental Studies
Dovidio & Gaertner (2000): white psychology students evaluate applications of black and white job candidates and what they found was that those with middle level qualifications were 70% less likely to be hired if black
Audit Studies
real life studies where two people with all the same characteristics except for race show up to interview, rent a house etc.
2000-2002 HUD audit series: Blacks experienced discrimination in 1/5 housing searches, latinos and asians in 1/4 and native americans the highest
Quillian, Lee & Honore (2020): housing discrimination has lowered but mortgage denial gaps have been steady since 1970s
Massey & Lundy (2001): Telephone audit focused on black accented english
What is the drawbacks of audit studies?
they are expensive, are they really identical
What are 5 domains of discrimination?
- Residential
- Education
- Employment and income
- Health care and health outcomes
- Criminal justice
Housing discrimination - what is the index of dissimilarity?
estimate of the percentage of members of numerical minority group that would have to move somewhere else in order to attain perfect integration
How did residential segregation happen?
Racial steering
Redlining
Restrictive covenants
Racial steering
this is where real estate agents steer buyers toward or away from certain areas
racial steering actually increased in 2005 study
Redlining
mortgage lenders would refuse to make loans to members of certain groups (mainly racial groups in certain neighborhoods)
would draw a redline around certain neighborhoods that they would not make loans in
Redlining
mortgage lenders would refuse to make loans to members of certain groups (mainly racial groups in certain neighborhoods)
would draw a redline around certain neighborhoods that they would not make loans in
this practice is partly to blame for huge wealth gap
whites have 8-10x more net worth than blacks - this is related to home ownership
Restrictive covenants
agreements between homeowners not to sell their properties to people deemed as “undesirable” it was often part of the deed to the property - they would promise to not sell to members of certain groups
Did neighborhood covenants happen in seattle?
yes
Discrimination in Education
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896): “separate but equal” - legalizing segregation
Brown v. Board of Ed (1954): “separate is inherently unequal”
schools make much of their funding from property taxes
What are some integration efforts?
Busing - measure to integrate schools by busing them to different districts
White flight - white families move to suburbs where that would not happen
Magnet schools: meant to attract white kids to black schools by creating special programs but what ends up happening is that races are in different classes
Income gaps are narrowing but…
wealth gaps are big, and they matter! It is not income that gives you financial security it is wealth
leave something to your children so they do not have to start at the bottom
Race and Health Disparities
african americans 30% as likely to die than whites due to heart disease, twice as likely to die of strokes
hispanics age 2-19 highest in obesity
Native Americans have a infant mortality rate 60% higher than whites
