Although nearly 50 years have passed since the Civil Rights Act, employment discrimination persists. Thus, this focal article raises and addresses critical issues regarding a yet unanswered question: how can organizational researchers and practitioners contribute to the ultimate goal of eradicating employment discrimination? This article will push previous work a step forward by considering discrimination reduction tactics spanning the attraction, selection, inclusion, and retention phases of the employment cycle. Additionally, we expand our discussion of strategies to reduce discrimination beyond classically studied racial, ethnic, and gender differences. Our synthesis of this literature will inform organizational psychologists on how to address discrimination, but will also highlight the lack of evidence regarding important aspects of these strategies.The year 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. In the nearly 50 years since this legislation was codified, organizational scholars, and practitioners have been among those working to ensure that the tenets of Title VII-which prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin-are implemented effectively. Despite substantial efforts over 5 decades, employment discrimination persists. Indeed, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) resolved 42,545 charges in 2012 alone, excluding cases where no reasonable cause was found or
Although scholars agree that traditional forms of discrimination have generally been supplanted by subtler interpersonal manifestations of discrimination, it is yet unknown whether targets of these behaviors or the American judicial branch recognize such negative behaviors as violations of extant law. Extending research and theory, we propose that denigrating messages toward women and ethnic minorities (i.e., microaggressions) emerge in workplace interactions and are sometimes interpreted as discrimination. Specifically, this research explores the presence, severity, and frequency of microaggressions that appear in a random sample of race and gender discrimination cases in federal court dockets since the year 2000. The results suggest that microinsults, microinvalidations, and microassaults are reported in a variety of discrimination claims. However, only overt and intentional forms of microaggressions (microassaults) increased the likelihood that decisions favored plaintiffs. Thus, there may be a disconnect between forms of discrimination perceived by claimants and how those forms are evaluated by the legal system that protects victims of discrimination. This potential misalignment of science and practice is discussed, as are directions for future research.
McDaniel, Kepes, and Banks (2011) summarize the last 3 decades of research literature on the science and practice of personnel selection and identify some inconsistencies between contemporary perspectives and the requirements of the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (Equal Opportunity Employment Commission,
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