A Black man got a job interview after he changed the name on his resume. Now, he’s suing for discrimination | CNN
A Black man got a job interview after he changed the name on his resume. Now, he’s suing for discrimination | CNN
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.
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.”
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.