Sensitive Issue- Need Help
lhill
334 Posts
We just hired a young man of mixed ethnicity. While his features are mostly causasian, he has in his resume references to minority awards he has earned. In filling out the EEOC information I do not know how to list his race. I could ask him what he prefers, but I certainly do not want to be insensitive, and don't know of any way to phrase this. I wouldn't hurt his feelings or embarrass him for anything. Can anyone help me? Should I just mark "other" and be done with it? This doesn't seem fair, in case he closely identifies with or prefers one or the other.
Comments
I’m recalling a conversation I had with an OFCCP compliance officer and I do believe I remember him saying that an individual does have the option of self-declaring oneself as either a white Hispanic or as a non-white Hispanic. I am not sure of the mechanics for the situation you have at hand, but I’m surmising that the data collection form could be designed to accommodate the nuanced choice(s) and you could carry the individual under "Other" (with a footnote)in the AAP you are compiling.
geno
Form.-- what form? I would never profess to be a source of information or give advice for any state other than the one I reside in. As such, I certainly cannot speak for Massachusetts, but the state of Maryland does collect Affirmative Action data in categories that include, in part: Non- Hispanic Whites, Non-Hispanic Blacks, Hispanics and Two-or-More Races. I stand by my statement that an applicant can indeed declare themselves as either a Black Hispanic or a White Hispanic. Where/how the employer records the declaration in their Affirmative Action Plan might be open for debate but that’s for a different thread.
Geno
We use a check-off type form (including, of course the obligatory and ubiquitous space for "other") at application time. I believe that you will find that the concept of self-declaration is the key to your dilemma. You could (if you haven’t already) make available to the employee a form to complete with known options to select from. In the spirit of compliance inherent in Executive Order 11246 is the implied concept that the applicant be given the opportunity to “self-declare” his/her ethnicity – you are not required to guess.
Geno, SPHR
If, however, you are tracking your applicant demographics for some other, non required reason, I'd just let my best guess guide me in posting.
Unless the employer is in the middle of some kind of conciliatory agreement as the result of a settlement with the EEOC, I don't know why else you would track applicants for them.
And it seems an awfully vague question to ask "With whom do you identify". You might find a white guy who says he more closely identifies with Hispanics if that's who he's been hanging with.
(idit) Excuse me. I see where the man HAS indeed been hired.
But, I will say it is a bizarre notion that an employer would develop and maintain a tracking system just for the purpose of satisfying a request from any government agency for such a record at some potential point in time; and, I have never known of an employer who did that. If it were a 'failure to hire' or 'discrimination in hiring' case, the complainant is already going to assert that they were an applicant; the employer need not roll out a log book to prove that point in the case. And rolling out a log book without the complainant's name in it will be meaningless.
In either type of charge the employer is going to be required to show why the complainant was not hired and how the hired party exceeded the complainant's qualifications. A log does none of that and a hearing officer or court will not care whether or not the complainant appears on a log. They only want to know why he was not hired.
And there is nothing else that such a log could or would do to protect the employer's interest after the complainant's case moves along. It would only serve to perhaps push the employer into a quagmire. If you disagree with this, tell me with an example how you think such a log might serve an employer. No theories or mumbo jumbo, just give me an example of how the defense might be aided by the existence of a log.
Having such a log will only serve the charging party, never the employer.
When a hearing is held or a demand letter comes, the EEOC always wants to know who was hired and who was not, by race, age, sex and reason; not how many people walked through the door. If a log showed more of your traffic to be minority and you hired a non-minority, that would bolster the charging party's case. If a log showed more of your traffic to be non-minority the government will simply want to know why you chose another candidate over the charging party. They will not care one iota that the statistics favored (by number) non minorities. The government will stack that evidence against you in every case. So do not voluntarily track it for them.
Again, I will propose that nobody can offer up an example of how having such a log has ever saved an employer one nickel or one charge. In fact every labor attorney in America would advise against such a non-mandatory log of applicant traffic.
Incidentally, without an attorney I won the first illustration outright - because of the data. I signed a conciliation agreement in the second. The conciliation was that I would conduct a sensitivity class for the facility managers. The question that the investigator asked me was, "could you tell me how a bunch of managers who tell jokes about black people can make a non-discriminatory hiring decision?". I suppose I could have hung in there and tried to prove that the decision was the right one based on qualifications but the claimant seemed to be more concerned about the process and environment than the decision. It was a cost effective way to resolve the case.
Your comment as a consultant to 'better track data if you have an affirmative action plan' is a no brainer. It is not optional in that circumstance. It's not 'better track'; it's 'MUST track'. I asked if you had ever, as a consultant, recommended the practice to clients not covered by such a demand. And if you did, why and were you successful or did they drum you off the property. I would have unless you could offer some scintilla of convincing evidence as to why I should.
Time to move on.
You can be white and get awards or belong to organizations more geared to black or hispanic causes, for heaven's sake.
Gee, I belong to lots of organizations, some identifiable with groups not of my background -- as identified by my race/ethnicity/color or gender.
Just a thought: how would you classify Tiger Woods without asking him; Afro, Caucasian, Oriental, Native American? He's made it clear he doesn't believe he falls in any of those categories. As such, I assume for your reporting purposes he would have to be classified as an "other".
Moving right along.............
Excellent question. This actually came up during the election and she laughingly commented that she could be referred as an African-American? Shades of Clinton. It appeared to be a choreographed question.
Teresa Heinz Kerry - laughing????