Printer-friendly versionBias is only part of the story. For restaurateurs, choosing employees to be their establishment’s “public face” involves complex perceptions of race and class. Sometimes that process holds back not only minorities but also white workers who don’t have a certain look. And many immigrant busboys and dishwashers can’t become servers because they haven’t mastered English or secured legal status.
In related news, the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, a national restaurant workers’ organization, recently released a report called, “Behind the Kitchen Door,” which studied data from Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Maine and New York City. In all five locations, “workers of color” were largely employed in the industry’s “bad jobs” (low wages, few benefits and limited opportunities for increased wages) while white workers disproportionately held the “good jobs” (living wages, access to health benefits and advancement opportunities). Workers also reported discriminatory hiring, promotion and disciplinary practices.
This lesson challenges students to reflect on themes of fairness, perception, discrimination and legality with regard to employment and to examine their own biases and related experiences.
Professional Development
- Anti-Racism Activity: The Sneetches In this early grades activity, students learn about unfair practices in a simulation exercise and then create plans to stand up against discrimination.
- Test Yourself for Hidden Bias Students may not realize what hidden biases exist in their psyches. Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia and the University of Washington created “Project Implicit” to develop Hidden Bias Tests to measure unconscious bias.
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin or sex.
- The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or an employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.
Activities and embedded assessments address the following standards (McREL 4th edition)
Language Arts
Standard 4: Gathers and uses information for research purposes
Standard 7: Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts
Standard 8: Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes
Standard 10: Understands the characteristics and components of the media
Civics
Standard 9: Understands the importance of Americans sharing and supporting certain values, beliefs, and principles of American constitutional democracy
Standard 11: Understands the role of diversity in American life and the importance of shared values, political beliefs, and civic beliefs in an increasingly diverse American society
Standard 14: Understands issues concerning the disparity between ideals and reality in American political and social life
Standard 18: Understands the role and importance of law in the American constitutional system and issues regarding the judicial protection of individual rights.
Standard 25: Understands issues regarding personal, political, and economic rights
