Death Penalty Racism

According to the New York Times, Blacks who kill whites are significantly more likely to face the death penalty in Maryland than are blacks who kill blacks or white killers, according to a state-sponsored study released yesterday. By itself, the study found, the race of the defendant was essentially irrelevant. […]The report found that two… Continue reading Death Penalty Racism

Race

Eve Tushnet has a series of thoughtful posts on race (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 6a, 7, 8, 8a, 9a, 9b, 9c, 9d, 9e). She discusses the employment study that I talked about earlier (1, 2, 3, 4). I don’t agree with all of Eve’s ideas but they are interesting nevertheless.

Racial Discrimination: #5

Kieran Healy links to a study focussing on the effects of a criminal record on job prospects. Pager found a similar race effect to the study Kreuger writes about, but because she also looked at incarceration it brings it into sharper focus. She found that blacks “are less than half as likely to receive consideration… Continue reading Racial Discrimination: #5

Racial Discrimination: #4

I like the data organized this way. For each want ad, four resumes were sent, two Whites and two Blacks. Equal Treatment 87.37% No Call-back 82.56% 1W+1B 3.46% 2W+2B 1.35% Whites Favored 8.87% 1W+0B 5.93% 2W+0B 1.50% 2W+1B 1.43% Blacks Favored 3.76% 1B+0W 2.78% 2B+0W 0.45% 2B+1W 0.53% Another interesting breakdown is by occupation and… Continue reading Racial Discrimination: #4

Racial Discrimination: Post 3

Looking at the data for the different names from the previous post, a few things come to mind. There is a great variation even within a category. What is the reason for that? Do people like Kristen so much better than Emily? Ebony over Aisha? What’s wrong with Neil? What is Brad doing right (other… Continue reading Racial Discrimination: Post 3

Racial Discrimination: Expanded

Continuing on an earlier post, here is the data about the first names used, their prevalence in the specific group (black/white male/female) and the percentage who received calls for interviews in the study: White-Sounding Black-sounding Name Frequency Mean Call-back Name Frequency Mean Call-back Females Emily 4.7% 8.3% Aisha 3.6% 2.2% Anne 5.0% 9.0% Keisha 3.7%… Continue reading Racial Discrimination: Expanded

Is Racism Alive?

It sure seems like it from this study: To test whether employers discriminate against black job applicants, Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Sendhil Mullainathan of M.I.T. conducted an unusual experiment. They selected 1,300 help-wanted ads from newspapers in Boston and Chicago and submitted multiple résumés from phantom job seekers. The researchers randomly… Continue reading Is Racism Alive?