Jose Zamora Racial Bias

In early September 2014, José Zamora’s job search story surfaced through many news outlets. Zamora applied for between 50 to 100 jobs daily for several months. He received very few responses, so as an experiment, he decided to change his name to Joe Zamora and dropped the “s” from his first name on his resume and applications. One week later, his inbox was full of inquiries seeking to schedule interviews or requesting responses on opportunities for jobs. As Zamora and many others have experienced, name discrimination in the hiring process occurs consciously or subconsciously. Racial bias has been an important issue in the United States for many years, even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which, specifically in Title VII of

By Kantian standards, the universal law would be not to lie at all. It is not ethically correct to permit some lies on a resume and consider others acceptable. However, it is also ethically unacceptable to allow racial profiling to occur when considering job applicants for a position. Instead of the applicants having to compensate for racial bias and profiling in their job search by lying in their resumes, a better and more ethical solution would be to create more regulation both from the government and within corporations to work against bias of all types in the hiring process but especially racial bias. Some examples of regulation are to mandate blind reviews of applications and resumes when deciding on which applicants to interview and also to place a stronger value on diversity in the workplace by hiring a chief diversity officer (CDO) amongst other important actions within a corporation. More regulations by the government in the hiring process could help prevent racial bias by hiding names from applications and resumes so that any name stereotypes would be eliminated upon initial review of the application. This type of regulation may be initially hard to implement and may cause initial outcry as it would also prevent any favoritism shown through business connections and relationships. However, it could

Providing training to current employees will help reduce skepticism regarding new hiring policies and can help employees understand that “hiring decisions are based on finding the best candidate and not by quotas,” according to the Wall Street Journal. Being transparent about the new recruiting process and diversity efforts can also help employees to understand and support the new programs, as well as making sure that top-level employees embrace the program and vocalize it to help it spread throughout the company. Offering benefits such as onsite daycare, flexible schedules, and cultural and religious holiday accommodations can also help attract and retain new employees from all different backgrounds. Dedicating mentoring and training programs and resources to new employees can help show them that they have a future with the company and can help them invest in and enjoy their time with the company (Wall Street Journal). The implementation of all of these programs can help to develop a new sense of diversity within an organization, which can help to eliminate conscious and unconscious bias and work to achieve a more culturally-sensitive and diversity-oriented