How do companies try to hide racial discrimination?

It’s clear from the law that racial discrimination is illegal in the United States. It’s almost astounding to think that there was a time when a company could outright refuse to hire someone of a specific race, but it did happen. Thankfully, it no longer does.

The problem is that outlawing this type of discrimination didn’t end it entirely. Some employers simply attempt to hide it. How might they do so?

Setting up policies that impact one race more than another

One way that companies do this is by creating policies that do not equally impact everyone in the workforce, and then forcing employees to follow the policy anyway. There have been complaints about hair and dress codes in schools with racial undertones, for instance, and some have gone so far as to compare them to the “whites only” signs of previous generations.

Doing this allows a company to fire an employee and then claim it wasn’t about race by saying that all the employee had to do was follow the regulations that were given to everyone. However, if those regulations resulted in zero changes for white employees and massive changes for African American employees, it’s clear that the real goal was just to create an excuse to fire the minority employees — or to refuse to hire them in the first place.

What can you do about workplace discrimination?

If this happens to you and your entire career is on the line, it can be stressful.  Just rest assured that the law does protect you and you do have legal options. You can explore them with the right team on your side.