Interrogating the How and Why of Contemporary Workplace Discrimination

Research on race and gender discrimination in workplace organizations typically (1) assumes constraining effects of bureaucratic structure on the capacity of powerful actors to discriminate and/or (2) reverts to micro-level interpretations of unfair treatment—interpretations that highlight implicit biases of gatekeepers. Such approaches generally overlook high and ongoing levels of discrimination reported yearly to the EEOC and Civil Rights organizations. Moreover, such orientations are theoretically problematic by ignoring how bureaucratic structures and practices are embedded within legal protections for employers and, moreover, are permeated by culturally normative racialized and gendered hierarchies. Drawing on a current book project and nearly 1,000 workplace discrimination cases across 8 U.S. states, Roscigno highlights in this talk how contemporary race and gender vulnerabilities to discrimination are tied to ongoing legal loopholes—loopholes that confer leverage to employers—and how culturally resonant notions of the “ideal” worker continue to be activated in important, discriminatory ways, often using seemingly neutral bureaucratic standards. The permeation of race-and gender-laden presumptions into organizations, their activation relative to oversight and bureaucratic policing, and the invoking of race- and gender-blind bureaucratic discourses to legitimate discriminatory conduct are crucial to understanding the roots of contemporary inequality production within organizations.