Shattering glass ceilings: white males and African American jobs

Black Enterprise, Sept, 1995 by Frank McCoy

Black people get promotions white men deserve. Affirmative action hurts whites more than it helps black men or women.

The above falsehoods and other not-so-little white (male) lies were gutted recently by two studies that focused on minorities in the workplace.

The first light was shed by the bipartisan Glass Ceiling Commission report on corporate America's dismal record of advancing minorities to management and decision-making positions. The paper includes multiple examples of the biased policies many--but not all--white corporate officers employ to support their exclusionary and racist decisions. The commission was headed by U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

The results are stark. In 1992, white males, while making up only 43% of the total labor force at Fortune 1,000 Industrial and Fortune 500 Service companies, were 97% of the seniorlevel decision-making managers. By contrast, only 0.6% were black, 0.4% Latino and 0.3% Asian.

The lack of corporate status translates into lower salaries as well. Black males with professional degrees earn only 79 cents for every dollar received by white males with the same credentials. And black women take home only 60 cents per dollar.

What are the disparities based on? The report concludes that many white males in hiring or supervisory positions are prejudiced against and believe stereotypes about employees of a different race, gender or ethnicity. And some white employers and managers threaten legal action if a black person is hired or promoted above them. But, as a second study shows, these white males are unaware that their anger at black success is hollow.

Last March, in a Bureau of National Affairs Employment Discrimination Report, Rutgers law professor Alfred W. Blumrosen showed that a high proportion of reverse discrimination lawsuits lack merit.

After reviewing more than 3,000 discrimination opinions by federal district and appeals courts from 1990 to 1994, he found fewer than 100 reverse discrimination cases. And reverse discrimination was established legally in only six cases, he notes.

The studies have serious implications for corporate America. Many CEOs have created affirmative action programs, acknowledging that corporate diversity strengthens their bottom line. But as the Glass Ceiling report shows, hiring black workers doesn't ensure equality of opportunity to rise up the corporate ranks.

Secondly, Blumrosen's analysis destroys anecdotal evidence used by some white males who claim that affirmative action hurts them. He found that these individuals often take positions based upon a false sense of white male superiority. The upshot, says Blumrosen, is that "many of the cases were the result of a disappointed [white male] applicant failing to examine their own qualifications and erroneously assuming that when a woman or minority got the job, it was because of race or sex, not qualifications."