News @lemmy.world Stopthatgirl7 @lemmy.world 8mo ago

A Black man got a job interview after he changed the name on his resume. Now, he’s suing for discrimination | CNN

www.cnn.com A Black man got a job interview after he changed the name on his resume. Now, he’s suing for discrimination | CNN

A Black man has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against a hotel in Detroit, Michigan, alleging the hotel only offered him a job interview after he changed the name on his resume, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by CNN.

Dwight Jackson filed the lawsuit against the Shinola Hotel on July 3, alleging he was denied a job when he applied as “Dwight Jackson,” but later offered an interview when he changed his name to “John Jebrowski.”

The lawsuit alleges Jackson was denied a job in “violation of Michigan Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act.”

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Is 'Dwight Jackson' a black sounding name? I'd have assumed the person was white if I'd read that name.
- Dwight not so much, but Jackson, yes.
  
  To the point that "Jackson" became jazz/jive-era slang that was the equivalent of "hey, what's up?" when black people who used that slang were talking to each other.
  
  Five of em were pretty famous. One even became the king of pop.
  
  It's also an extremely common surname for those of English/Scottish/Irish descent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_(name)
  
  I'd be more willing to buy that they looked him up on social media and didn't like what they saw. Whether or not that was his profile picture (race), or something he posted, is something I can't answer.
  
  But the name alone isn't something I'd believe.
- Over 50% of the people with that surname are Black.
  
  https://discover.23andme.com/last-name/Jackson
  
  That's nationally too. So in a place like Detroit with a large Black population, I feel like people would assume Dwight Jackson was Black.
- Agreed, it may just be a case of they weren't hiring but then they were or the first resume was lost or a different manager looked at the resume. There are so many reasons what it could be that it shouldn't be assumed race was a factor unless the hotel specifically said so.
  
  Edit: reading the article I can see the guy applied many times before changing his name. I am slightly more convinced it was based on his name but it could still be they weren't hiring but then they were. Or maybe they just wanted to meet the guy with such an awesome sounding name "Jabroski" sounds like something you would say in the 90s when Pauly Shore was popular. Memorable names stand out and make an impression.
  
  these, among others, are the reasons why i didn't take the same action when i resubmitted my resume under a very WASPy sounding name and the desire gets re-ignited every time i get an interview request after re-submitting my resume the same day my original resume was rejected.
- Also need to take location into account here. Detroit is 77% black Seems it would be pretty easy to show discrimination is there is a hotel in Detroit that is lacking in black employees.
- Yeah. Nothing wrong with that though.
Middle-aged white guy here. First and last names, total white bread. Middle name? Black. Think "Tyrone" or "Trevon". (LOL, Trevon shows a spell check error on one of the top 20 black male names.)

Couldn't get a response on my resume for 6-weeks, nada. Changed the email to take out my middle name. Next week, 3 interviews and a solid job.

Had a black neighbor with a valley girl accent show up to an interview. 8 white girls waiting for their interviews. They showed her the door and said there was a mistake, no openings. She eventually got hired since her preacher was a top dog at the place.
- The good thing about racists is that they're fucking stupid. Just interview the person and say nothing instead of making up an obvious lie.
  
  But what if the interview goes well... Then what? We can't just hire them. Then we'll be forced to maybe face... Something. Not sure exactly what...
  
  Just interview the person and say nothing instead of making up an obvious lie.
  
  You don't get it, they consider this a humiliation inflicted by them on someone they want, well, humiliated. Eh, and sometimes it is true.
- 8 white girls waiting for their interviews. They showed her the door and said there was a mistake, no openings.
  
  This is baffling. She could clearly see the other girls, yeah? All applying for the same position?
  
  How do you dismiss one candidate in front of others, and say there are no openings? I don't get it.
  
  They just didn’t finish the sentence. ‘There are no openings for someone of your heritage.’
  
  It might not be true.
  
  Well maybe she misread the room? 🤔
  
  Arrives for the interview and there are 8 white girls, in scrubs, in the waiting room. Also, the person who was to take her in the back for the interview was visibly shocked.
  
  My wife is a Filipino and I'm shocked at what she's encountered in interviews.
  
  "Are you Mexican or Asian?" Visible disgust at Asian.
  
  "Are you a Christian? Oh. A Catholic. You have to attend our church every Sunday or we won't hire you."
  
  Bonus points: Her first name is sorta black sounding. Told her to work around that somehow. Because I had to.
  
  https://old.lemmy.world/comment/11105265
- I have a Latin surname. I am sure it's cost me in some circles. But in others it's an advantage. At least for me I think it kind of evens out.
  
  Yeah, me too. I'm a white woman with an Asian last name and a gender neutral first name. Honestly, I think my gender neutral first name opens more doors for me than the Asian last name closes.
- LOL, Trevon shows a spell check error on one of the top 20 black male names
  
  My autocorrect replaces “human” with “juman”! wtf
I've witnessed this first hand from the hiring side for an IT position. I was going through resumes with my boss and he straight up said, "I don't want any hispanics, I want a white guy." while tossing anything with a hispanic name to the side without even looking beyond that. This was in Orlando in an area with a large hispanic population. The kicker is that my boss was actually hispanic himself!
- The kicker is that my boss was actually hispanic himself!
  
  In the UK we call that racist taxi driver syndrome. A lot of immigrants come to the UK and because it's a good money earner, or at least because they think it's a good money earner, they tend to buy a taxi.
  
  Anyway you get in and suddenly they start telling you about all their world views, usually it's along the lines have there been too many immigrants. Even though they are an immigrant themselves.
  
  Very much a case of shutting the door behind themselves.
  
  Haha so true. I remember some my friend's family going on about how we should all vote leave because of all the immigrants.
  
  Mate, you were born in Napoli. You're as Italian as spaghetti. I'm not that kind of British person and, as far as I'm concerned, you're more than welcome here but you're the "immigrant" you hate so much. Not only that, your that being that person while banging on about how bad immigration is to a group of very obviously white native British people. It was just the most bizarre thing ever.
  
  He still has an accent.
  
  I genuinely wanted to be like "but we like you." I don't think that would have gone down very well though.
- I'm Chinese and I am also extremely weary of hiring someone from China. Pretty scared of CCP spies TBH.
  
  This is actually really fascinating to me, the idea that citizenship/nationality is a bigger factor in how you feel and that race isn't a key factor. It tells me maybe society (globally, generally) is getting less plainly racist, but anxieties around nationality (and what that could indicate about individual attitudes and intentions) is obviously rising and taking its place, so racism ends up being obliquely adjacent to the more direct fear of the state. In other words, general society is making progress with being comfortable with people of different races, whereas country of origin becoming more worrying and slowing down progress.
  
  What a strange disconnect there. We don't fear individuals, we fear what they represent.
  
  (I ate a gummy an hour ago tho sooooo I feel like I'm just stating the obvious so ... Maybe?)
  
  Pretty scared of CCP spies TBH.
  
  Okay, but this is a fundamentally different reason that isn’t born out of general racism or xenophobia.
  
  It’s maybe not ideal, but I don’t consider this to be a morally reprehensible attitude.
  
  "From China" and "Chinese(-American)" aren't the same thing
- I wasn't expecting that. I would understand that there a slight positive involontary bias towards candidates with a familiar-sounding name, but such shameless behavior is astonishing
  
  That's not that surprising, if their Hispanic boss was from Cuba, they're probably a conservative and consuming a lot of right wing propaganda. I know a conservative Puerto Rican who's afraid of the ms13 gang. He lives in rural NJ.
- I know a few Hispanics who really don't like being Hispanic. Like refuse to talk in Spanish but when abuela calls he will.
- Are Latinos over represented in your company with respect to the population? That would be a defensible position for your boss on this. I mean if you had 85% Latinos that could be taken as evidence of some sort of ethnic bias in favor of Latinos.
  
  That would be a defensible position for your boss on this
  
  Not legitimately, in my opinion. A candidate should never be hired or rejected to meet certain quotas.
- If you are hiring in IT and skip everyone without a white-sounding name, you are definitely going to have a much smaller hiring pool.
His name was already about as white bread as it gets. This is a real and genuine problem when it comes to hiring, but it's going to be a huge uphill battle for him to prove anything here.
- When I think of the name "Dwight" I think of Eisenhower or the character from The Office. Not this guy.
  
  Are there a lot of white Jacksons though? Legitimately asking, I don't know any Jacksons personally and basically only drum up the obvious as far as famous folk lol
- jackson is an extremely common surname in the black community?? the fuck??
  
  It's also extremely common in the white community. They're saying that his real name isn't one that would cause someone to assume you are nonwhite, like Will Dewitt, Ashley Jones, or Casey Smith.
  
  It's also an extremely common last name among white people. It tells you nothing on a resume. This dude's name is akin to someone named John Smith.
- Jackson? That’s a common black last name. For example, Jesse Jackson.
  
  It's also a common white name, isn't it?
  
  And also a common white last name. It's just a common last name. Alan Jackson, Andrew Jackson, Peter Jackson. It's a surname with English origin. Lots of Jackson's out there. It tells you pretty much nothing about what the person looks like. Couple that with your first name being DWIGHT, and you've got yourself one hell of a common name.
We had something similar out here where a black family felt their home evaluation was really low when they were getting ready to sell so they had a white couple "show" the home to a different evaluator from the same company and surprise surprise the estimated value was like 30% higher for the white couple.
- NGL. That is some really fucked up shit.
  
  It's the quiet racism that is really the most insidious
  
  A guy I know bought a house in my town which still had a "no sales or subletting to negroes" clause in its deed when he took possession. His realtor told him it was totally unenforceable in this century, but would be a hassle to have officially removed. I have no idea of the veracity of the latter statement, but I did see a copy of the covenant and the offending clause was indeed present.
  
  People say, "it wasn't that long ago that we cast off that kind of racism." Uh, no. It still hasn't actually been cast off.
This is a well researched phenomenon.

It’s also been demonstrated that these sorts of biases have made their way into the AI models which are commonly used to review applicants.
- Models reflect the biases of their training data, garbage in garbage out
There is clearly a LOT of discrimination that happens in the hiring process and basically no oversight or accountability. How else can workers fight discrimination like this without going to the lengths that this man did?
- How else can workers fight discrimination like this without going to the lengths that this man did?
  
  and these lengths aren't enough; i've been doing the same thing that this guy has done for nearly 20 years now and i've spoken with 3 lawyers who advertised working on contingent and the common thread is that one instance is not sufficient enough proof in court; you would have to submit at least dozens to hundred over a period of years to prove anything.
  
  the best anyone can do is compile a list of companies to avoid or not spent much bother when it comes to applying and, given my experience, i hope that this guy isn't paying for it upfront like the lawyers i've spoken with wanted from me.
- Which lengths? Legal protections mean that you must take the offender to court.
Freakonomics talked about this ages ago

Not that they are a proper source or anything just... one of those things where it feels true and you keep seeing examples of it forever
- Freakonomics lists all their sources at least
  
  There's also been tons of academic studies on it that back it up.
- Freakonomics fact checks.
  
  Yeah they aren't bad but the nature of this type of thing is largely statistics and self reporting and all sorts of other stuff smarter more scientific, academic minded people could point out than my stoned brain recalls. Things that can be interpreted differently much like translators could translate the same scene between characters with different dialog and undertones.
  
  I mean it isn't like they are outright disproven or liars or anything.. just it is often up for scrutiny because that is the nature of sociology.
I often fantasize that one day I'd start my company and require that all resumes be submitted without a name on it.
- This is trivially easy to do if you're having resumes submitted through a form. But companies are not doing it.
- https://ethglobal.com/showcase/zkredentials-costv
  
  And now I can't stop thinking of fantasize is something the size of a fanta.
Jebrowski

Kurwa!
- Jakie bydle jebane
  
  *sorry for missing diacritics
  
  I'm not pole, but I understood this...
The hotel's attorney: "He ain't gettin' shit from Shinola!"

I hope he wins enough to not need that job.
I'm beyond shocked, I figured it was Texas.
I love the idea of POC making this a minefield. Set a precedent in favor of Mr. Jackson here, then spread news of it. Every time a POC gets turned down, they might try again with a white name and get a payout, and once it hits companies hard enough, they have to adjust how they hire. Make them scared and cost them money!
So hear me out. From time to time, I have applicants who repeatedly apply, but because they said something stupid to the person who took their application, or they were dressed inappropriate, or had poor hygiene, or whatever reason, I keep their resume in the ‘do not call’ pile.

If that person simply changes the name on the resume, It is likely that I would then give them a call, not knowing it was actually stinky Pete applying again, or whatever.

In this totally reasonable scenario, the names used had nothing to do with it.

Also, we are always advertising that we are hiring so that we have a fresh set of resumes to choose from if we need someone immediately. We may not be hiring for months while someone applies over and over. Then someone will quit or get fired and we will immediately begin calling resumes starting with the most recent. There is a good possibility that this whole thing is a coincidence… not everything has malicious intent.

I know racial discrimination in hiring definitely exists and is probably super prevalent, but there is a chance this is not one of those cases and there are other plausible explanations if the only evidence that exists is what is in this post.
- Also, we are always advertising that we are hiring so that we have a fresh set of resumes to choose from if we need someone immediately
  
  So, you aren't hiring then.
  
  Louder for the moron publicly outing his own scummy industry practices.
  
  Correct, we advertise that we are hiring so that we have fresh resumes, and then when someone quits or gets fired, we call the resumes and hire someone. Most businesses do this.
- Also, we are always advertising that we are hiring so that we have a fresh set of resumes to choose from if we need someone immediately.
  
  Sure just go ahead and be disrespectfully wasteful of everyone's time. other people are just tools that exist to be used, after all.
  
  disgusting behavior, given the number of people actively trying to find good work to survive. if I was looking for work and I found out someone was doing this with my resume I'd be livid if they ever dared to call me.
  
  So you don’t want the job then?
- Yes those could all be possible but the evidence has shown time and time again that people with minority sounding names get less call backs than average. So him filing suit over this is good cause either it was one of those and it will be proven in court pretty easily by company records or it'll turn out it was race based and the company can be punished for it.
  
  Fair enough, I just hope it’s a large company who deserves the court costs regardless of their intent in this case, and not some small business who can’t afford to go to court when they have done nothing wrong. The burden of proof should be on the person making the claim.
- Why does your company waste people's time saying they're hiring when they're not? That's a whole other problem... called lying... but I guess it's okay because everyone is being treated like shit equally?
  
  You can get fresh resumes by putting up a listing on Indeed and get new ones almost immediately. There's no excuse for lying to applicants.
  
  I really hope your just a troll making shit up, even though I know companies do this frequently. Never thought I'd see someone almost proud of it and act as if it's not problematic behavior.
  
  In my state companies are required to take your application and keep it on file for a year whether they're hiring or not
  
  The sign says ‘always accepting resumes - send resume to xxx @ xxx.com - see staff for details.
  
  When people ask about the ‘accepting resumes’ sign, we tell them that the best way to get a job with us is to put in a resume about once a month and if/when we need someone we will call all the recent resumes.
  
  A ton of people want to work for us because we pay way above the industry standard, we pay for good healthcare and retirement, paid vacations, unlimited sick pay, good bonuses, and flexible scheduling… completely unheard of in the service industry.
  
  There is no lying, we are super transparent. And turnover is low, because only the best applicants make it through to the hiring stage.
  
  Believe it or not, indeed provides a very slow and small number of shit applicants, nothing more. To get good hires, you need to have your finger on the pulse of the community.
  
  You are so blinded by rage against the machine that you fail to see the difference between the dying small business and the mega corps, to you it’s all the same, and that attitude is a part of the problem.
- “It’s not malicious intent”
  
  Explains how his companies entire hiring strategy it openly malicious, lol
  
  How is ‘always accepting resumes’ malicious? Put your resume in and move on, I’ll call you if I need you, the world doesn’t owe you anything.
  
  If you really wanted a job, be persistent and eventually someone will hire you, but not if you walk around with a huge chip on your shoulder hating on every small business trying to make it in the late stages of capitalism.

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