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.”
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.
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.
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…
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.
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?)
wtf? society is still obviously racist. you must not be black.
Exactly, that’s why I qualified that statement with the terms “generally” across the globe and also distinguished being plainly racist (which I view as hate because of race itself, stereotypes at individual level) from racism that seems to primarily precipitate from fears of or for the state (hate because of the larger stereotyped idealogies or propaganda of that person’s race, whether or not an individual espouses them).
I am not Black, this is true. I primarily worked my hypothesis out from a purportedly Chinese person saying they wouldn’t trust the hiring of people from China. Now, their comment does seem to have a racist component. I don’t know to what levels internalized racism is related to geopolitical fears, but if we consider that this Chinese person is likely not racist to themselves, e.g. hating their individual attributes, we can assume that they are not wary of the Chinese person for being Chinese. Their mistrust in the state makes them so wary they can’t even be supportive of hiring people from China, in what I assume is the US. It seems like racism is only secondary to the primary fear of the state (or some geopolitical facet), the racism coming from a position of self-preservation rather than overt hate of the race.
Fear is going to be the death of us.
Also, I am high and pretty sure I just took the scenic route in describing xenophobia. Shit tits.
it sounds like you heard one specific situation and are conflating that with a general trend
And it sounds like you are still overlooking all of the qualifiers and nuance in my nonscholarly, inebriated statements. In neither post did I assert “society is not racist.”
you said you thought society was becoming less racist
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.
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.
Did you report your boss …
Naa it was a small business and he owned it.
I mean to the labor board, or wherever … there is a poster at every workplace that has the info about who to call when this happens.
I know a few Hispanics who really don’t like being Hispanic. Like refuse to talk in Spanish but when abuela calls he will.
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.
jackson is an extremely common surname in the black community?? the fuck??
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.
it’s known as a black surname, it’s not uncommon for white people … but it’s common if you’re black.
So no one looking at your resume would have any idea. It’s also not. It’s literally an English surname.
Yes, many black people have the name bc of slavery.
Ding ding ding.
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.
The fact that this exists is the most hilarious rebuke to the guy you are replying to I can pretty much imagine.
He doesn’t need to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a civil suit. Essentially, his face value evidence is strong enough to win unless the hotel can provide clear explanation of how it did what it did, for example if they had different people processing different stacks of papers. At the same time, the plaintiff will have a chance for discovery, so who knows what will happen on that front.
It could be racism, or it could be because the reviewers eyes fell on different words while they were skimming the CV, or it could be because the reviewer was slightly more tired for one of the CVs. This sort of thing is very hard for a human being to be consistent at.
What you’re missing is his actual job history, identical on both resumes, he was applying for a luxury hotel customer service position, and had many years of exactly that experience, unless three other people with more experience than him applied and one of more dropped out, it makes no sense he was looked over, and then interviewed. That’s what pushes this from a case of maybe racism to a lawyer accepting the case because of the very strong evidence of racism.
And even if it was a case of two three people having more experience on their resume, and then dropping out, why wouldn’t the hiring manager scheduling the interview tell him that, and why did he pick the newer resume over the older one with exactly the same experience, it doesn’t add up. Resumes are usually organized oldest to newest, relevant job history greatest to least.
You are making sense, logically. That’s how it should be: If you are a better candidate, you should get the interview.
But picture this nonsense scenario that I think is nevertheless illustrative of the problem: the hiring manager is overworked, at the end of their 12 hour shift filling in doing odds and ends because they’re understaffed and the guests need service, a kid threw up in the pool, there is a standards compliance issue regarding detergent and it might be illegal to wash the sheets with this, the breakfast delivery was cancelled and in six hours there will be hungry guests, and there are 30 CVs to read while they’re on hold talking with an emergency industrial bakery.
Those CVs are not getting the attention they deserve. The job won’t be going to the best candidate. The job will go to whoever seems most acceptable of the 5 CVs they managed to read before the croissants got ordered and they’re off to their next emergency.
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
Yes, absolutely. A horrible example comes to mind; Andrew Jackson
.
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
White supremacy isn’t a shark, it’s the water
-Guante
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.
Hope he wins
Oh Detroit, you so silly.
Edit:: fixed link
Its even more comically bad than you describe and the link suggests.
The settlement was for a workplace racial discrimination lawsuit.
Discrimination^2
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.
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!
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.
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.
SO, YOU AREN’T HIRING THEN?
Sir this is a Wendy’s, if you shout at the staff we will not hire you.
It’s called capitalism buddy, there are plenty of worse things to complain about then some small business trying to stay staffed up properly.
Found the shill
I will gladly shill for the sliver of small business left, against the mega corps who own everything else.
The problem is that this is a megacorp tactic designed to keep up with the massive turnover shit companies have. Mom and pop shops don’t have this problem when they treat employees with even basic levels of respect.
We have very low turnover, and we are a small mom and pop. Part of the low turnover is being prepared for the occasional open position so that while we are looking for a real good hire, we aren’t burdening the existing staff with picking up the slack… we have a stack of applicants and can get a solid replacement immediately. We are transparent about the process with the applicants, I don’t see the problem.
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.
And the prospect already got employed at a different business that had an open vacancy, congrats you’ve got NOTHING by hiring in advance and you also wasted the prospects time.
Just because there are other businesses that do this scummy tactic doesn’t mean it’s right or less scummy.
Also, hiring on advance because someone would quit or would be fired so you need to have a roster to replenish them, says A LOT about your business and its climate.
And the prospect already got employed at a different business that had an open vacancy, congrats you’ve got NOTHING by hiring in advance and you also wasted the prospects time.
no no, you see, it’s ethical, because there’s always a revolving door of unemployed people, who somehow don’t have bad hygiene, and are always dressed appropriately, and this tactic works because they exist, and we’re just doing them a service, really. don’t ask questions as to why or how that revolving underclass of desperate unemployed people exist, that’s not allowed.
Wasted whose time? It’s not like we are constantly interviewing people. When people put their resume in we tell them that when a spot opens up we will call them. We encourage them to put a resume in once a month so that when we need someone they will likely get a call. I don’t understand your term ‘hiring in advance’.
How is accepting a resume when we aren’t actively hiring a scummy tactic? People ask to work here every day and we tell them that we aren’t actively hiring but we would be glad to accept a resume. The real persistent people who really want the job keep following back up and eventually they get hired and stay for years and years.
Having fresh resumes is a tactic that allows us to be more flexible with employee schedules. With a staff of 20 people, maybe two per year turn over. I don’t know what you mean about hiring in advance… We hire when we need someone and we have a good number of people to choose from, that way we aren’t stuck with hiring the first applicant that comes along, which inevitably causes more work for the rest of the employees when we don’t get a good hire.
We don’t have that problem because we keep a fresh stack of resumes.
We don’t have that problem because we keep a fresh stack of resumes.
Dude FFS those are actual people, not just resumes.
Yea I know, and when we hire them we take good care of them. What’s the problem?
so much good care that you need to prepare for them to spontaneously quit the job or have to fire them? Yeah sure…
The problem is that sending in a resume and applying for a job takes effort. If you invite people to spend time and effort and mental energy to get a thing (job) when you know you won’t give it to them, then you are wasting their time and effort and mental energy, which I can tell you as somebody who fucking hates looking for jobs, that mental energy can be in serious short supply for people looking for work.
That “fresh pile of resumes” is definitely good for you when you want it, but the giant stale pile of resumes that you keep throwing away is not free for the people sending them in.
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?
What job? You’re not hiring remember?
When the job becomes available, you won’t get the call because your resume will be put in the ‘do not call’ pile.
Buddy, if you think for one second that any job candidate worth the paper their resume is written on is going to take a job from a place pulling the shenanigans you are, that would explain why you’re “struggling to make it” in this capitalist society. Your job listing went into the “don’t bother interviewing” pile months before you even pulled that resume out of the pile. Of course you’re going to start needing employees in a pinch when your hiring pool is only the most desperate suckers out there lol.
We have super low turnover. We accept resumes, how is that shenanigans? Y’all are a bunch of raging idiots
Oh yeah such low turnover you need a constant supply of resumes just to survive. Do you even hear yourself lol.
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.
I work for a small business. And I’m not blinded by rage. But when I was looking for a job companies that pull this sort of “always hiring” thing are pretty frustrating.
Also, it’s not my fault if you misrepresented your companies policy. “Always accepting resumes” and “always hiring” are similar but different enough for you to switch when it was convenient for your argument. Not falling for your faux high road and trying to mischaracterize my argument.
Have a good day sir or madam.
I changed the phrasing to be more accurate, not to fit any argument. I don’t see any problem with having the sign up.
Theres a difference between lying and not lying. For someone hell-bent on taking the moral high ground, you sure seemed to miss this detail
What lie? We tell all applicants that we aren’t actively hiring but we will reach out to the most recent resumes if/when we need someone.
There is high demand to work for us, so we have a system for all the people who keep asking for a job.
We have tried it without a sign on the door as well and we still get a ton of applicants. We just would rather people email the resumes instead of leaving a physical copy.
In a previous comment, you said you indicated you were “now hiring” as a ploy to collect resumes. later, in a different post, you reveal that you actually say “accepting applications” which, critically, does not directly state that you are hiring. Lying about lying about hiring, I guess. It was an effective tactic to stir shit, but you outright misrepresented your situation.
As I said in a previous comment, I used the phrase ‘now hiring’ for brevity because the point I was making was not particularly about this method of managing the constant inflow of applicants.
After that inaccuracy proved to cause a half dozen of you to freak out, I specified the full verbiage ‘always accepting resumes, see staff for details’
I understand the difference but I didn’t foresee that being a catalyst for this detraction from the original point I was trying to make.
My intention, believe it or not, was not to stir shit. I had a point originally that had nothing to do with our now hiring, excuse me, accepting resumes sign. People here just latched on to that one detail and picked it a part without addressing my original point and the conversation went pear shaped.
“I lied for brevity why is everyone mad at me” lmao
“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.
I bet you’d bitch if you went through the effort of setting up an interview with somebody and then you never hear from them again because they’re not actually looking for a job right now. Don’t hide your clown show behind legitimate small businesses who don’t play games.
I don’t understand… do you think we are interviewing with no intent of hiring? How would that make any sense?
All we are doing is accepting resumes and letting people know that when we need someone we will call the resumes. We tell people when they put the applicant in that we aren’t actively hiring.
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!
