Tagged: perpetuating incumbent racial advantage
Had William Morris not intentionally maintained its discriminatory employment practices, policies and procedures in violation of Section 1981, Title VII, the NYSHRL & the NYCHRL, there would have been more than zero African American music Agents employed at the company’s various offices in the U.S. and/or I would have been hired as a music Agent at William Morris in 2008 since they filled a position in or around the time I submitted my resume. I would have represented artists who were relatively unknown at that time, but six years later, are now some of the biggest selling artists in urban music today….
An impartial jury should have ultimately decided whether or not my race played a motivating factor in why I was not hired and/or promoted to Agent by William Morris, as well as whether their employment practices created a disparate impact against qualified African Americans and people of color from getting their foot in the door and having an equal opportunity to advance.
Disparate impact is “based upon the premise ‘that some employment practices, adopted without a deliberately discriminatory motive, may in operation be functionally equivalent to intentional discrimination,’ Watson, 487 U.S. at 987, because the result ‘fall[s] more harshly on one group than another and cannot be justified by business necessity.’” Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v. United States, 431 U.S. 324, 335-35 n. 15 (1977).”
Source: WME and Loeb & Loeb LLP’s Opp. to My Motion for Summary Judgment and Cross Motion to Dismiss. November 6, 2012 [ironically, the day Obama was elected to his second term.]
“Washington cannot cite to a stack of studies on discrimination that have nothing to do with WME and rely exclusively on them in claiming that WME has been engaged in a 100-year-old conspiracy to maintain white/Jewish dominance of the entertainment industry. To accept Washington’s argument would be to endorse his racial and ethnic stereotyping and to permit a claimant to evade summary judgment based simply upon a generalized and inaccurate view of the entertainment industry and the talent agency workplace. Washington has admitted that WME never treated him differently because of his race; and his claim of disparate treatment fails for that reason alone.” — Michael Zweig of Loeb & Loeb LLP, November 20, 2013
If William Morris were truly innocent of Michael P. Zweig, Christian Carbone and Loeb & Loeb LLP’s criminal and unethical conduct, I think they would have a pretty strong claim for malpractice….
It’s funny to note that this statement was made in direct response to my following statement, in which they quote me in their Final Position Statement [pg. 8]:
Mr. Washington is not alleging that William Morris discriminated against him due to his race, color and/or perceived national origin. Based on the federal, state and city civil and human rights laws, the overwhelming amount of sociological and organizational research on the topic of discrimination in the workplace, and numerous articles published over the decades chronicling this issue of racism in Hollywood in magazines and newspapers including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Hollywood Reporter, Entertainment Weekly and others, this is fact.
I said this in paragraph 172 of my COMPLAINT that was filed with the Southern District of New York on DECEMBER 21, 2010!! I knew then — “based on the federal, state and city civil and human rights laws, the overwhelming amount of sociological and organizational research on the topic of discrimination in the workplace, and numerous articles published over the decades chronicling this issue of racism in Hollywood….” that I uncovered between June and December 2010 — that my claims of pre and post-hiring individual disparate treatment due to my “race, color and/or perceived national origin” were a “fact.” I was not making an “alleg[ation]” against William Morris any longer (e.g. trying to discuss the issue with former COO Cara Stein and HR’s Carole Katz while employed, filing complaint with EEOC, etc.) and the additional evidence I’ve uncovered over the last three years since filing my complaint (e.g. “Exhibit 31” and the “on-going” conspiracy to conceal these “nigger” e-mails) further proves this is a fact — no matter what conclusion Gregory reaches on December 23, 2013.
the “continuing violation doctrine.”
Under the continuing violation doctrine, “the existence of a continuous policy or practice delays the commencement of the statute of limitations until the last discriminatory act in furtherance of that policy or practice.” Salgado v. The City of New York, 2001 WL 290051 (S.D.N.Y.2001). See, Cornwell v. Robinson, 23 F.3d 694, 703–04 (2d Cir., 1994). Plaintiffs allege a pattern and practice of failing to promote them based on their race. Plaintiffs point to a specific mechanism or tool used in the promotional meetings that they allege demonstrates a pattern and practice of disparate treatment in promotional decisions. Plaintiffs also allege specific instances where they were passed over for promotions within the three year statute of limitations. See Harris v. City of New York, 186 F.3d at 250 (for the continuing violation doctrine to apply a claimant must allege both the existence of any ongoing policy of discrimination and some non-time-barred acts taken in furtherance of that policy). Therefore plaintiff’s claims occurring prior to September 10, 1998 that demonstrate a pattern and practice of disparate treatment in the promotion process cannot be dismissed as time-barred through this motion for summary judgment. The continuing violation doctrine may be applied to instances claimed to stem from UPS’s alleged racial discrimination in their promotion decisions.
Source: Hughes v. UPS, (2004 N.Y. Slip Op 510008 [NY Sup Ct 2004])
“discrimination-as-corruption”
What, if anything, is wrong with getting a good job – or getting into an excellent kindergarten – through family connections or a good word put in by a friend? Like the doctor who exemplifies Lessig’s “dependence corruption,” opportunity-hoarders are ordinary. The freedom or latitude to help and be helped by one’s friends and family is an obvious good. For anyone with family members or friends, one might even say that hoarding opportunities for your loved ones is simply what every person aspires to do as a loyal friend or family member. In Lessig’s account of dependence corruption, the ordinariness and lack of evil in individual actors does not preclude the conclusion that the conduct is corrupt and therefore in need of rooting out. What matters the most is the aggregate effect of the conduct on the stated goals of the institution. Similarly, a discrimination-as-corruption framework would regard ordinary non-evil practices as discriminatory if they had the effect of significantly undermining the conditions of equality necessary for democratic institutions to govern legitimately in the public interest.
Source: Julie C. Suk. “Discrimination as Corruption: Rethinking Quotas in Democracies.” pg. 46. http://web.law.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/microsites/law-theory-workshop/files/Suk_Disc_Corruption_2.pdf.
are employers in the U.S. relying on “informal hiring practices” to maintain racially homogeneous workplaces?
Progress toward equal opportunity in the U.S. labor market since the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been relatively slow and has stalled since the 1980s (Tomaskovic-Devey et al. 2006). Despite modest gains made by women and racial minorities, white male advantage has remained essentially undisturbed in the most sought after blue-collar and white-collar occupations (Tomaskovic-Devey and Stainback 2007). Researchers have offered a number of explanations for the persistence of gender and race inequality (see Padavic and Reskin 2002 ford review). We focus our attention on the role of social networks in information flow and specifically on differential access to information about job openings. Given the widespread use of informal hiring practices, the distribution of job information plays a central role in determining success and failure in the labor market. Information about job opportunities is unevenly spread throughout society (Burt 1972). Numerous people are qualified to fill any given position in the labor market, so simply knowing about the position opening is an important factor in determining who gets which jobs. The receipt of job information is therefore paramount for understanding how people gain access to their jobs (Granovetter [1974] 1995).
Access to information can be an impediment for women and racial/ethnic minorities’ attempts to gain entry into “good jobs.” Information about jobs passes through gendered and racialized social networks (Green, Tigges, and Diaz 1999). White males are presumed to have access to high quality jobs through old boys networks (Saloner 1985), while women and racial minorities are often isolated from information about good jobs. In this way, the flow of job information is hypothesized to serve as a mechanism in the reproduction of existing gender and racial inequality.
Literally, at every step of the employment process — even before one submits an application — African Americans and people of color are at a disadvantage for meaningful job opportunities due to employment discrimination occurring in the present. Even if an employer’s practices, policies and procedures create an unintentional disparate impact against qualified African Americans and people of color, this is still a violation of this nation’s anti-discrimination laws. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 must be strengthened!!
Source: Dan Ao, Nan Lin, Steve McDonald. Networks of Opportunity: Gender, Race and Job Leads. Social Problems, Vol. 56, No. 3 (August 2009), pp. 385-386.
Me Against Iniquity: Understanding the Complexities of Global White Supremacy (Racism) Through The Eyes of an Unapologetically BLACK Intellectual 