No

by Robin Landry

Created on: November 27, 2009   Last Updated: November 28, 2009

Things just aren't as simple as they used to be. When I was first confronted with the debate question, "Should 'multi-racial' be a category on job applications?" my first reaction was, "Of course!" I mean, our society is boasting more diversity than ever before and the number of interracial marriages has been rising slowly but steadily since the 1970s. Some years ago, a young Tiger Woods boldly asserted that he was not "African-American" but rather "Cablinasian" (which he defined as Caucasian-Black-Indi an-Asian). Individuals should be able to self-identify in whatever ways make them comfortable and no one should be forced to "choose" any one part of his heritage over another.

But sometimes, especially when you've just finished patting yourself on the back and congratulating yourself on the rational, enlightened, unbiased response that you've so carefully crafted, do you ever hear that other voice in your mind that says, "Well, yes, that's one way to look at it, but did you ever consider...?"

I'll confess that as I grow older this seems to happen to me...a lot.

While I remain steadfast in my assertion that people have the right and should be afforded the opportunity to identify their racial and ethnic heritage in any way they see fit, I also had to stop and consider the question from another angle, "Why are job applications asking questions about race to begin with? Is a person's racial make-up ever pertinent to the qualifications for the job? If the information isn't used for screening or hiring purposes then why is it being collected?"

I discovered that I really had no ready-made, gut level answers to these deeper questions and therefore set out to do some research. Career website Jobwerx and the Wall Street Journal both provided similar explanations. Optional questions regarding race and gender are not to be used as part of the hiring decision-making process. In fact, employers are required by law to keep this information separate from the job application itself in order to avoid charges of discriminatory hiring practices.

The primary purpose of collecting this data is to enable companies to demonstrate to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that they are interviewing from a diverse pool of candidates. So, if I'm getting this right, the race/ethnicity question doesn't really have anything to do with ensuring diversity in the workplace or facilitating a good match between potential candidates and their prospective team mates, work environment or the job itself, right?. It is really just about complying with bureaucratic rules presumably designed to make sure that companies are "playing fair."

But does this really work? I mean, I'm all for equal opportunity for women and minorities in the job market. As a member of both groups I'm very glad that the government is making sure that I have the same chance to compete as everyone else. Unfortunately, however, there will always be some who will be dedicated to finding ways to skirt the system. The Jobwerx website described the following clever, albeit dishonest workaround,

"There are also margins for hedging or abuse in that if a company does not get enough female applicants or Asian applicants for a specific position, that company will decide on who they are going to hire without making an offer and keep the job requisition open until the correct number of minority applicants have been recorded."

Although not mentioned in the article, another thought occurred to me. Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., most recently in the news for his altercation with the Cambridge Police Department and the subsequent White House "Beer Summit", was previously involved in the production of two PBS documentaries, African-American Lives and African-American Lives 2. In the second documentary, Gates explored the phenomenon of people who are Caucasian in their appearance, but through genetic testing discovered sometimes significant levels of African ancestry.

The point is that if every job applicant in the United States went out and had a DNA test to determine their specific genetic markers for what we normally refer to as "race" my suspicion is that nearly everyone would be able to check the "multi-racial" category. If that is the case, then what really is the point of all of the government oversight to ensure a "diverse candidate pool"?

Based upon research done by a number of different genealogists, Diversity, Inc. published an article suggesting that Barack Obama likely isn't the first U. S. President with African ancestry. Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Dwight D. Eisenhower were all rumored to have had multi-racial backgrounds. Most African-Americans already realize that we are not "100% black" and if people like Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower could legitimately be categorized as "multi-racial", at least at a genetic level, then what significance does "racial diversity" really have.

At the risk of being labeled a "Clarence Thomas", all of this information has led me to believe that the collection of "racial demographics" in an effort to ensure equality in interviewing and hiring practices is probably just a waste of time. "Race" is a concept that is murky at best and if we're honest with ourselves what we term as "racism" really isn't about "race" at all, at least in a genetic sense, but rather about appearance. Our perceptions about people and their abilities, strengths and weaknesses are colored (no pun intended) by how the person looks. If a person "looks black" some of us assume certain things about that person. If a person "looks white" we may bring an entirely different set of assumptions to the table. But the fact is that it is really no different than some of the assumptions that we make regarding people who are physically attractive or overweight or who wear mismatched socks or drive "beater" cars. Sometimes those superficial, external characteristics might offer clues to a person's capabilities or values or work ethic, but most times probably not.

So, I think I'll revise my original answer; multi-racial should not be a category on job applications, but not for the reasons that some might assume. It isn't because a person's heritage isn't important to their own identity or in how they choose to identify themselves to the world. It is more a matter of the intended use of the information. I'm not convinced that collecting this data actually accomplishes what the government intends

Perhaps a better way to ensure equality in hiring practices is to replace all of the "rules" with just one: Employers must conduct all interviews while blindfolded.

Learn more about this author, Robin Landry.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.