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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)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

159 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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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[–] [email protected] 83 points 4 months ago (10 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago (2 children)

When I think of the name "Dwight" I think of Eisenhower or the character from The Office. Not this guy.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (6 children)

jackson is an extremely common surname in the black community?? the fuck??

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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[–] [email protected] 95 points 4 months ago (22 children)

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!

[–] [email protected] 66 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

The hotel's attorney: "He ain't gettin' shit from Shinola!"

I hope he wins enough to not need that job.

[–] [email protected] 71 points 4 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I often fantasize that one day I'd start my company and require that all resumes be submitted without a name on it.

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[+] [email protected] -27 points 4 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 months ago (4 children)

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.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (8 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 months ago (1 children)

“It’s not malicious intent”

Explains how his companies entire hiring strategy it openly malicious, lol

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Louder for the moron publicly outing his own scummy industry practices.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

SO, YOU AREN'T HIRING THEN?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 4 months ago

Sir this is a Wendy’s, if you shout at the staff we will not hire you.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 4 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Freakonomics lists all their sources at least

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago

There's also been tons of academic studies on it that back it up.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Which lengths? Legal protections mean that you must take the offender to court.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

I'm beyond shocked, I figured it was Texas.

[–] [email protected] 125 points 4 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

It might not be true.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 months ago

They just didn’t finish the sentence. ‘There are no openings for someone of your heritage.’

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 months ago

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...

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