McCallum n’est pas surpris de l’accueil réservé à Le Pen

2016/03/23 Leave a comment

Reinforcing the message:

Le ministre fédéral de l’Immigration, John McCallum, croit qu’en refusant de rencontrer Marine Le Pen lors de son passage au Canada, les politiciens ont fait comprendre à la chef du Front national « qu’au Canada, on n’est pas d’accord avec elle ». Concernant l’accueil des 25 000 réfugiés syriens au pays — « de la folie », selon Mme Le Pen —, le ministre McCallum estime que le message est tout aussi clair. « Il y a un bon consensus parmi la classe politique au Québec et au Canada en faveur de ces réfugiés. Donc le fait que les politiciens ne veulent pas lui parler ne me surprend pas », a-t-il affirmé lundi.

De passage à Saguenay, le premier ministre Philippe Couillard a pour sa part rappelé que Mme Le Pen n’occupe aucune fonction au sein du gouvernement français et qu’il n’a pas l’intention d’entamer un débat avec elle.

Source: McCallum n’est pas surpris de l’accueil réservé à Le Pen | Le Devoir

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Diversity and Inclusion Agenda: Impact on the Public Service, Setting the baseline

2016/03/22 1 Comment

My article in The Hill Times, slightly updated:

The Liberal government included in its mandate letters to all ministers a “commitment to transparent, merit-based appointments, to help ensure gender parity and that Indigenous Canadians and minority groups are better reflected in positions of leadership.”

While the focus is clearly with respect to political appointments, this commitment will likely extend to the senior ranks of the public service in a renewed emphasis on diversity. Deputy minister appointments are made by the Prime Minister upon the recommendation of the Clerk of the Privy Council. While the Foreign Affairs Minister recommends  ambassadorial appointments or equivalent, largely reflecting public service recommendations, the Prime Minister approves. The PM also has the power to select candidates for high-profile positions. ADM appointments in Canada, on the other hand, are by the public service only. All positions at this level are bilingual.

With this in mind, I have established the baseline for the current representation of women and visible minorities that will allow tracking of progress over time.

Overall, the Public Service is reasonably diverse with respect to women (54.1 percent), visible minorities (13.2 percent compared to the 15 percent who are Canadian citizens) and Indigenous Canadians (5.1 percent). For the executive ranks, women are almost at parity (46.1 percent) but visible minorities are under-represented (8.5 percent) as are Indigenous Canadians (3.7 percent). All figures are from the Treasury Board Secretariat report, Employment Equity in the Public Service of Canada 2013–14.

To determine representativeness, the government applies a labour market availability (LMA) benchmark (i.e., “the share of designated group members in the workforce from which the employers could hire”).  For ADMs and other members of the EX category,  the respective LMA is 45 percent for women, 7.5 percent for visible minorities and 4.5 percent for Indigenous Canadians.

Arguably, a more appropriate measure of inclusion is derived from comparison to the overall share of the population (or, in the case of visible minorities, the percentage of those who are also Canadian citizens – 15 percent).

However, these aggregate numbers — both actual and LMA — do not give a detailed sense of diversity within the senior ranks of the public service, defined as deputy and assistant deputy ministers (DM and ADM or equivalent).

Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries are relatively diverse (41 percent women, 21 percent visible minority men or women).  The question is how diverse are those public servants at senior levels, with whom they work.

My information sources are reasonably accurate. For the 85 Deputies, their Associates and equivalents, public sources such as GEDS (the government electronic contact database), the Parliamentary website, cross-checked with PCO Deputy Committee lists, were used for both Deputies and Associate Deputies. This data does not include any of the recent changes announced by the Prime Minister.

For ADMs, Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) provided official statistics for the 282 officials at the EX-4 or 5 rank for the 2013-14 year in the core public administration (77 organizations),  along with estimated labour market availability.

For senior heads of Mission (HoM), Global Affairs Canada provided a list of the 16 missions whose Ambassadorial and High Commissioner positions are currently classified at the EX4-5 level (these are a subset of the overall ADM numbers).

Some of these positions are over-filled by people at the DM level (e.g.,  Jon Fried at the WTO) or former politicians (e.g., Lawrence Cannon in Paris, Gordon Campbell in London, and Gary Doer in Washington). This data predates the announcement of the two Ambassador-designates in Washington and the UN (New York), both men replacing men.

While the data for gender is reliable, data for visible minorities is less so, given that official reports rely on self-reporting and that there are limits to using names and photos to identify visible minority status. However, this methodology is also used with respect to MP diversity.

Election 2015 and Beyond- Implementation Diversity and Inclusion.001What does the data show? As seen in the chart above, representation of women is relatively close to gender parity, save for Ambassadors and their equivalents (Heads of Mission and other ADM-equivalent officials abroad).

However, visible minorities are less than half of the percentage of those that are Canadian citizens (15 percent) or in the House of Commons (14 percent).

The ‘all EX’ category has more junior executive positions (EX1-3) and thus the greater diversity in these feeder groups suggests that over time, diversity  at more senior levels should naturally increase.

The public service may feel compelled to take a more active approach given the Government’s commitment.

Likely early tests of the Government’s commitment to increased diversity will occur as deputy ministers retire and are replaced along with changes to Heads of Mission over the course of the year.

13 new Deputies have been named to date by the Prime Minister including 6 women (46 percent, reflecting in part the four women: appointed on International Women’s Day!) and one visible minority (8 percent). Future appointments will indicate whether this portends a trend.

By tracking this on an annual basis, along with changes to ADM ranks, progress can be assessed.

Diversity and inclusion agenda: impact on the public service

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Marine Le Pen the untouchable?

2016/03/22 Leave a comment

One of the better English summaries of her visit:

The proverbial 10-foot pole has become a popular approach for Quebec politicians in dealing with the leader of France’s far-right party, who arrived in Montreal on Friday.

Marine Le Pen may be among France’s most popular politicians — polls suggest she has enough support to make the run-off stage in the country’s next presidential election — but she has yet to secure a meeting with a mainstream political figure in Canada.

That hasn’t stopped her from wading into federal and provincial politics, sending politicians scurrying for cover.

Canada’s immigration policy an ‘error’

At a news conference in Quebec City on Sunday, Le Pen criticized Canada’s immigration policy, calling it an “error” to admit 25,000 Syrian refugees.

“A multicultural society is a conflicted society,” she said during the news conference.

Le Pen described the current situation in France as warning for Canadians.

“We put out a welcome sign, but what conditions await them? The slums of Calais? This is a policy that makes no sense and is dangerous,” she said referring to a large informal refugee camp near the tunnel underneath the English Channel.

Le Pen has had trouble finding a receptive audience since she arrived in Quebec. A small group of protesters disrupted her Sunday news conference, shouting and unfurling banners with anti-fascist messages.

“Away children, go back to bed,” she told the protesters, saying their behaviour was “unacceptable in a democracy.”

PKP ‘shocked’ at meeting

Le Pen did manage to meet with people claiming to be from the Parti Québécois on Saturday. She told Radio-Canada that she has supporters within the party.

“The PQ is diverse and vast,” Le Pen said. “It’s not monolithic.”

PQ’s leader Pierre Karl Péladeau quickly took to Facebook to dissociate himself from Le Pen, saying he was “shocked” that anyone from his party would meet with her.

The Front National’s values “are diametrically opposed to the values of the Parti Québécois,” Peladeau said.

Source: Marine Le Pen the untouchable? – Montreal – CBC News

My friend Arun shared this article about the coverage in France:

FIASCO – Imaginez le scénario. Vous traversez l’Atlantique, tout content de partir en voyage au Québec, espérant renforcer votre stature internationale et en pensant rencontrer des personnalités politiques locales de premier plan, la présidentielle de 2017 en tête. Vous communiquez même sur ce dernier point. Mais, à peine débarqué de votre avion, vous commencez à déchanter car personne ne veut vous voir. C’est ce qui se passe avec le voyage outre-Atlantique de Marine Le Pen.

D’après divers articles de la presse canadienne, la présidente du Front national, de passage au Canada pour six jours, le temps de passer par Québec et Montreal, n’est pas la bienvenue pour la classe politique locale. Pourtant, le FN avait fait savoir que la candidate à l’élection présidentielle de 2017 allait rencontrer des “politiciens fédéraux” sans plus de précision.

Sauf que Le Devoir a contacté la plupart des hommes et femmes politiques de premier plan et aucun ne veut rencontrer Marine Le Pen. “Tous les partis contactés vendredi, tant au niveau provincial que fédéral, ont indiqué qu’ils n’avaient pas prévu de rencontre avec la politicienne de 47 ans”, écrit de son côté La Presse le 19 mars.

“Au Québec, le porte-parole du premier ministre Philippe Couillard, Harold Fortin, a déclaré que personne au gouvernement n’a l’intention de rencontrer Marine Le Pen”, écrit encore le Devoir sur son site et qui détaille les réponses similaires de nombre d’autres partis. Et Antonine Yaccarini, la porte-parole de l’aile parlementaire du Parti québécois, de résumer le sentiment prédominant chez les politiques québécois :

Nous n’avons pas une minute à consacrer à cette personne-là.

Comme le note également le Devoir, un député a même conseillé sur Radio-Canada à Marine Le Pen de plier bagage et de rentrer en France. Sollicités, les parti “La Coalition avenir Québec” et “Québec solidaire” ont refusé de rencontrer la patronne du FN. Idem du côté du maire de Montréal. Un fiasco.

En déplacement au Québec, Marine Le Pen peine à rencontrer des élus canadiens

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‘Religious freedom is under attack’: How a Canadian agency [Office of Religious Freedom] teaches respect where it’s tough to find | National Post

2016/03/22 Leave a comment

While likely partly orchestrated to keep the Office of Religious Freedom in its current form (rather than programming being folded into the overall human rights organizational and programming structures, some of the examples are nevertheless compelling.

Ironically, had public servants under the previous government carried out similar activities (some did), they were accused of disloyalty and not ‘loyal implementation’:

It’s those deep-seated problems that the Office — amid speculation the new government will shutter its doors — tries to tackle, according to its ambassador, Andrew Bennett.

Courtesy of Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue

Courtesy of Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue Children and mothers take part in a nine-day camp on religious dialogue in Latakia, Syria, in January 2016, funded by Canada’’s Office for Religious Freedom. 

“We’re talking about long-term, multigenerational change. Nothing is going to change in this countries overnight,” Bennett says in an interview.

Bennett describes his office as an advocate both abroad and within the Foreign Affairs department, amid more immediate initiatives like refugee resettlement and aid.

“Within government, in a highly secular country like Canada, we tend not to be very comfortable talking about religion or religious faith,” he says.

“Part of our work is to educate and raise awareness about the role that religious faith plays in foreign policy, and more generally in how people see themselves.”

In one case, Bennett’s staff invited the Mennonite Central Committee, which already runs development projects in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, to submit a proposal in December 2014 — four months into Canada’s airstrikes in Iraq.

A Manitoba couple who oversees MCC’s regional work found groups in all three countries, and applied for $500,000 in funding. A fifth of that money supports the three Syrians’ projects, which teach youth to respect strangers. The couple helps the activists manage their budget, tallies their progress and offers moral support.

Laying a foundation for freedom

Though all three activists come from different religions, they all grew up with middle-class families and career goals. They’re now tackling the root of Syria’s conflict, and laying a foundation for when it finally ends.

Rami set up an interactive play that drew 1,200 people. The play starts with a Muslim and Christian neighbour who fall in love, and the end result is determined by the audience’s suggestions.

At one performance, a priest and a sheikh rose to give an impromptu speech on respecting others. At another, scores of displaced people who sleep in a nearby mosque talked about feeling alienated in their new city.

Despite sporadic water and electricity, for three days Rami got 400 people into the basement auditorium of a blown-out building last December.

Emma crisscrosses her country, including territory held by ISIL, to co-ordinate civil society groups.

“When the war ends, people will need to work together,” Emma says. “For peace to last, they have to trust each other.”

The 34-year-old trains groups in managing projects, securing foreign funding and evaluating whether participants are less likely to join terrorist groups. She’s abandoned her dreams of raising a family, and knows her work puts her life at risk.

Alex facilitated a nine-day choir camp in Latakia, one of Syria’s less dangerous cities, where many displaced people have settled.

His team taught 32 children and 22 mothers to respect people of different religions — almost all their fathers are on the frontlines — during the New Year break.

“At first it was difficult because they don’t have the concept of being together,” said the 28-year-old. “But at the end they were singing together.”

All three Syrians admit they won’t see any fruits of success for decades, but say they’re in it for the long haul.

The activists spoke with the Post during a recent regional conference in Beirut, which was funded by the grant. To get to there, each made dangerous taxi trips darting through rebel- and government-held territory toward the Lebanese border.

At the conference, the three learned from local activists who ran similar projects during the 15-year-long Lebanese civil war.

Looking at today’s Syria, Rev. Dr. Riad Jarjour recalls Lebanon crumbling in 1975 because adherents to 18 different sects lived parallel lives, building resentment and suspicion among neighbours.

“It’s so good to have children learn about living with each other, respecting each other, before they grow up and have something build in their minds because of no education,” says Jarjour, who founded the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue.

He believes Canada was ahead of the curve in opening the Office of Religious Freedom three years ago, modelled on a U.S. position created in 1998.

Source: ‘Religious freedom is under attack’: How a Canadian agency teaches respect where it’s tough to find | National Post

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Islam Makes Stronger Patriots, US Study – The Atlantic

2016/03/21 1 Comment

American_Faith_GroupsWorth noting:

Donald Trump’s calls for a ban on Muslim immigration and the closing of American mosques seem to reflect suspicion that Islam and American citizenship are incompatible. But religion and patriotism are not opposing forces for American Muslims; in fact, they’re strongly correlated.

That’s one of the key findings of a first-of-its kind poll conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a non-profit focused on studying this section of the American population. The poll compares Muslims to American Jews, Protestants, and Catholics with respect to their levels of religiosity, patriotism, activism, and general outlook on the state of the country and on their lives. “In this election cycle, specifically, Muslims have been a topic of debate but seldom participants in that discussion,” said Dalia Mogahed, ISPU’s research director.

“We found that there was no correlation between mosque attendance and support of violence,” Mogahed said. On the contrary, she suggested, the results indicate that mosques are ideal places where community organizers might start engaging people because those who attend regularly “are more receptive to a message of civic engagement.”

“The research shows that mosques are actually a force for moderation. Muslims frequent a religious service as much as Protestants, and those who do go more frequently are not in any way more likely to condone violence,” Mogahed said. Muslims who said they attend services more frequently were more likely not to condone violence, with 65 percent saying “it is never justified,” compared to 45 percent of similarly devout Jews, 43 percent of Catholics, and 40 percent of Protestants.

The survey also found that American Muslims were more likely than members of other faith communities to reject attacks on civilians by the military, and as likely as any other group to also reject attacks on civilians by an individual or a small group, Mogahed said. They are “at least as likely as other faith communities to reject violence unequivocally,” she said.

Source: Islam Makes Stronger Patriots – The Atlantic

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Marine Le Pen: l’accueil de 25 000 réfugiés syriens est «une folie»

2016/03/21 Leave a comment

Marine Le Pen’s visit to Quebec and reactions:

L’accueil de 25 000 réfugiés syriens par le gouvernement Trudeau est une « folie ». La classe politique d’ici subit une forme de « terrorisme intellectuel ». Les Québécois ne sont pas assez combatifs quand vient le temps de défendre leur langue. En visite au Québec, la présidente du Front national (FN), ce parti d’extrême droite de France, en a long à dire sur la politique canadienne et québécoise.

Marine Le Pen estime que son parti a des affinités avec le Parti québécois. Elle appuyait le projet de charte des valeurs, qui a soulevé une telle controverse. Elle croit que Pierre Karl Péladeau donnera un « nouveau souffle à la souveraineté ». La Presse l’a rencontrée.

Sa visite au Québec était à peine annoncée que tous les partis politiques provinciaux et fédéraux sont sortis sur la place publique pour déclarer qu’ils ne rencontreraient pas Marine Le Pen et qu’ils ne voulaient rien avoir à faire avec elle. À croire que la chef du FN est radioactive. Que pense-t-elle de ce traitement ?

« La classe politique québécoise semble vivre dans une forme de crainte. Et je trouve que quand il y a de la crainte dans une démocratie, c’est que la démocratie va mal. » Mme Le Pen, qui trouve la réaction des politiciens « puérile », affirme que des gens du milieu politique ont sollicité des rencontres avec elle, mais qu’ils ont eu « peur de le faire » ou qu’ils l’ont contactée « pour dire qu’ils [avaient] subi beaucoup de pression ». Elle refuse de divulguer leur nom ou leur allégeance.

« Il y a une forme de terrorisme intellectuel qui est très dommageable. Parce qu’une démocratie mature n’a pas peur du débat d’idées. Ça en dit long sur le poids du politiquement correct et de la pensée unique. Cela dit, ce n’est pas très grave. Je ne suis pas là pour faire la tournée des popotes politiques. Même s’il y a toujours intérêt, quand on est un responsable politique, à pouvoir échanger avec des gens qui peuvent sur certains sujets partager vos préoccupations. »

Source: Marine Le Pen: l’accueil de 25 000 réfugiés syriens est «une folie» | Gabrielle Duchaine | Politique

And:

Le chef du Parti québécois, Pierre Karl Péladeau, a tenu à dissocier sa formation politique d’une rencontre qui aurait eu lieu entre des militants du PQ et la dirigeante du Front national, Marine Le Pen, en visite au Québec.

M. Péladeau a dit, samedi, sur sa page Facebook, avoir été «choqué» en apprenant que des personnes, «s’affichant comme des “jeunes du Parti québécois”», avaient rencontré Mme Le Pen.

«Au nom du Parti québécois, je tiens à dissocier formellement notre formation politique et ses instances de toute activité ou rencontre, issue d’initiative personnelle, avec des représentants de ce parti dont l’histoire, la doctrine et les propositions sont aux antipodes des valeurs du Parti québécois», a-t-il écrit.

Sébastien Chenu, conseiller régional de Picardie-Nord-Pas-de-Calais et se présentant comme délégué national du Rassemblement Bleu Marine – un mouvement rattaché au FN -, avait publié une photo de Mme Le Pen avec quatre hommes, écrivant: «MLP rencontre les jeunes militants du Parti québécois! Échange passionnant!!»

La dirigeante du Front national, parti français d’extrême droite, débarquait à Montréal vendredi. Mme Le Pen annonçait sur son site officiel un voyage en Amérique du Nord débutant ce week-end.

La politicienne ne met aucune rencontre officielle à son agenda.

À Ottawa, au Parti conservateur, on affirmait, vendredi, ne rien savoir de la visite de la dame et on ne prévoyait pas de rencontres entre elle et des élus conservateurs. Même commentaire chez les néo-démocrates, les bloquistes et au gouvernement de Justin Trudeau. À Québec non plus, personne ne se préparait à l’accueillir.

Le député du parti de gauche Québec solidaire Amir Khadir a dit à Radio-Canada être prêt à rencontrer la présidente du Front National, en dernier recours, «par humanisme». Il disait vouloir démontrer à Mme Le Pen «que le Québec n’est pas un terrain xénophobe».

La présidente du Front National a rétorqué, également en entrevue à la télévision publique, qu’elle avait à faire à «plein d’Amir Khadir» en France, des gens qui estiment «que lutter contre l’immigration est faire preuve de xénophobie».

Des péquistes rencontrent Marine Le Pen, Péladeau s’en dissocie

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Trudeau appoints seven new senators: Diversity and inclusion in this first batch

2016/03/19 Leave a comment

The first batch of Senate appointments provide initial confirmation of the Government’s intent to diversity and inclusion in appointments. The chart above contrasts appointments by previous Prime Ministers with those made Friday (former PM Martin made no appointments during his short tenure).

Prime Minister Harper made many visible minority Senate appointments, partially as part of its engagement strategy with new Canadian voters and to address representation gaps elsewhere.

In addition to the large share of women appointed, the presence of one visible minority, one Indigenous person, and one person with disability (although given her accomplishments, hard to consider Chantal Petitclerc as such), the regional balance of these initial appointments include three from Ontario and two each from Quebec and Manitoba.

The real challenge for the Government will be less with respect to these high profile announcements but the more mundane Governor-in-Council appointments that will be made over coming years (about 1,500 positions, currently just over 1,300 filled) and the range of judicial appointments that will emerge in coming years:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is appointing the head of his transition team and six other Canadians to the Senate in the first injection of fresh blood to the scandal-plagued institution in three years, sources said.

Mr. Trudeau is set to announce on Friday that he is calling on Peter Harder, a retired senior bureaucrat and high-level corporate adviser, to be the Liberal government’s leader in the Senate. In addition to Mr. Harder, the six new senators will be:

  • Raymonde Gagné, former president of Manitoba’s Université de Saint-Boniface;
  • Frances Lankin, a minister in the former Ontario NDP government and a national security expert;
  • Ratna Omidvar, an expert on migration and diversity, and executive director at Ryerson University’s Global Diversity Exchange;
  • Chantal Petitclerc, a champion Paralympic wheelchair racer and Team Canada chef de mission at the Rio Paralympic Games;
  • André Pratte, an award-winning editorial writer and federalist thinker from Quebec;
  • Murray Sinclair, a retired Manitoba judge and former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools.

Mr. Harder will face the tough task of moving government legislation through a fractious Senate in which the Liberal Party has no control over any other members. Still stinging from a recent spending scandal, the institution is also set to release on Monday a final report on the expenses claims of 14 senators who challenged the Auditor-General’s call for reimbursements.

Mr. Trudeau’s six other appointees will be expected to act as independent-minded legislators, as the Prime Minister aims to eliminate partisanship in the upper chamber and improve its reputation.

The Senate is currently composed of 42 Conservative senators, 26 Liberal senators (who are not part of the Liberal caucus of MPs) and 13 non-aligned senators.

Source: Trudeau set to appoint seven new senators – The Globe and Mail

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Women to outnumber men on Ottawa’s influential council of economic advisers

2016/03/19 Leave a comment

Another sign of the Government’s commitment to diversity and inclusion:

Women will outnumber men on what could turn out to be the most influential group of people around Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau.

The Canadian Press has learned that Morneau will unveil the federal government’s new advisory council Friday – a team that will help draw up a plan designed to get Canada’s economy out of a rut.

In total, the lineup of business and academic leaders will include eight women and six men.

The advisers, who will be paid a salary of $1, are responsible for helping the government prepare a long-term growth strategy that will be released by the end of the year.

The council members’ names are being made public just days before the release of the Liberal government’s first budget.

The budget, to be tabled next Tuesday, is expected to spell out much of Ottawa’s plans to spend billions of dollars on measures – such as infrastructure – aimed at boosting the country’s productivity and economic growth.

Last month, Morneau announced that the advisory council would be chaired by Dominic Barton, the global managing director of consulting giant McKinsey & Company.

At the time, Morneau said council members would meet with him regularly and provide advice “on concrete policy actions to help create the long-term conditions for economic growth focused on the middle class.”

The council will also include prominent business figures such as Canada Pension Plan Investment Board president and CEO Mark Wiseman and Michael Sabia, CEO of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, the province’s largest pension fund manager.

Other council members:

  • Elyse Allen, president and CEO, General Electric Canada
  • Katherine Barr, general partner, Mohr Davidow Ventures
  • Jennifer Blanke, chief economist, World Economic Forum
  • Kenneth Courtis, chairman, Starfort Investment Holdings
  • Brian Ferguson, president and CEO, Cenovus Energy Inc.
  • Suzanne Fortier, principal and vice-chancellor, McGill University
  • Carol Anne Hilton, CEO, Transformation
  • Carol Lee, CEO and co-founder, Linacare Cosmotherapy Inc.
  • Christopher Ragan, associate professor of economics at McGill University and chair of the Ecofiscal Commission
  • Angela Strange, partner, Andreessen Horowitz
  • Ilse Treurnicht, CEO, MaRS Discovery District

“I look forward to working with the council members, whose diverse backgrounds and impressive expertise will inform our work as we develop and implement a strategy that will build on the foundation we will lay with budget 2016,” Morneau said in a statement.

One visible minority by my count.

Source: Women to outnumber men on Ottawa’s influential council of economic advisers – The Globe and Mail

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Jobseekers resort to ‘resumé whitening’ to get a foot in the door, study shows

2016/03/18 Leave a comment

Further to earlier studies by Oreopoulos (How an ethnic-sounding name may affect the job hunt), additional confirmation of bias in resumé callbacks and the strategies being used by some visible minority applicants to improve their chances:

It’s a disturbing practice called “resumé whitening” and involves deleting telltale signs of race or ethnicity from a CV in the hopes of landing a job.

And it happens more often than you’d think.

According to a two-year study led by University of Toronto researchers, as many as 40 per cent of minority jobseekers “whiten” their resumés by adopting Anglicized names and downplaying experience with racial groups to bypass biased screeners and just get their foot in the door.

It’s when “Lamar J. Smith” becomes “L. James Smith” or “Lei Zhang” morphs to “Luke Zhang” — and the callback rates soar.

“It’s really a wake-up call for organizations to do something to address this problem. Discrimination is still a reality,” said Sonia Kang, lead author of “Whitened Resumés, Race and Self-Presentation in the Labour Market,” to be released in the Administrative Science Quarterly Journal Thursday.

“It shows us that racial minorities aren’t just passively receiving this discrimination. They are trying to do something about it.”

In the study, only 10 per cent of black job applicants — created by researchers based on real candidate profiles — received callbacks for job interviews if they stuck to their African names and experience with black organizations. However, the callback rate went up to 25.5 per cent if their names were “whitened” and their black experience was removed from their resumés.

In the case of the Asian applicants, only 11.5 per cent received callbacks if they used their Asian-sounding names and experience, compared to 21 per cent using whitened resumés.

When seeking jobs with employers known to have a pro-diversity image, minority job applicants were less likely to “whiten” their resumes, the study found.

But, perhaps most surprising, even with pro-diversity employers, the odds of getting called in for an interview were greater when a minority applicant took steps to hide their race, the research shows.

….In the third part of the research, 1,600 fictitious resumés — with no whitening, a whitened first name, whitened experience or a whitened first name and whitened experience — were sent in response to job ads.

In total, 267 or 16.7 per cent of the applications led to a job interview request. For black applicants, the callback gap between unwhitened resumés and those for which both the name and the experiences were whitened was 15.5 percentage points; for Asians, the gap was 9.5 percentage points.

Kang, an assistant professor of organizational behaviour and human resources management, said employers must go beyond the rhetoric of how they appreciate diversity in their workforce. “By creating a false sense of security, these (diversity) statements merely provide an illusion of diversity that might end up making things worse for minority applicants.”

How minority job applicants ‘whiten’ their resumés:

Unwhitened: Name of a black applicant on resumé appears as “Lamar J. Smith”;

Whitened: Changed to “L. James Smith”;

Unwhitened: Name of an Asian applicant on resumé appears as “Lei Zhang”;

Whitened: Changed it to “Luke Zhang”;

Unwhitened: Lists involvement as vice-president of Aspiring African American Business Leaders and peer counsellor of Black Students’ Association;

Whitened: Removes those organizations and replaces with causes such as “Give Kids a Smile Day” and first-year student orientation;

Unwhitened: Lists volunteer experience and interests that are exclusively within Korean community organizations;

Whitened: Removes them and replaces with hiking, snowboarding and activities common in Western culture;

Unwhitened: Being the political action chair of Black Students Association;

Whitened: Changes that to member of a generic minority business and entrepreneur group.

Source: Jobseekers resort to ‘resumé whitening’ to get a foot in the door, study shows | Toronto Star

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Trump Voters’ Aversion To Foreign-Sounding Names Cost Him Delegates | FiveThirtyEight

2016/03/18 Leave a comment

Not surprising, given the focus of his campaign and the demographics of those who support him:

If Donald Trump somehow falls three delegates short of reaching the magic 1,237 delegates needed for the Republican nomination, he may be haunted by an obscure outcome from the primary voting in Illinois on Tuesday. There’s clear evidence that Trump supporters in Illinois gave fewer votes to Trump-pledged delegate candidates who have minority or foreign-sounding names like “Sadiq,” “Fakroddin” and “Uribe,” potentially costing him three of the state’s 69 delegates.

This pattern appears to be a phenomenon unique to Trump’s supporters.

Illinois Republicans hold a convoluted “loophole” primary: The statewide primary winner earns 15 delegates, but the state’s other 54 delegates are elected directly on the ballot, with three at stake in each of the state’s 18 congressional districts. Each campaign files slates of relatively unknown supporters to run for delegate slots, and each would-be delegate’s presidential preference is listed beside his or her name. As a result, the top presidential candidate in each congressional district usually claims all three of the district’s delegates.

Except on Tuesday, a handful of congressional districts split their delegates in ways that cast doubt on voters’ racial motivations. Did voters have genuine personal preferences for the mostly anonymous individuals running for these slots, or was it a case of “what’s in a name?”

A FiveThirtyEight analysis of the dozen highest vote differentials within district-level Trump slates reveals a startling pattern: In all 12 cases, the highest vote-getting candidate had a common, Anglo-sounding name. But a majority of the trailing candidates had first or last names most commonly associated with Asian, Hispanic or African-American heritages. Of the 54 Trump delegate candidates in the state, two of the three worst-trailing candidates were the only two Trump candidates with Middle Eastern-sounding names.

Source: Trump Voters’ Aversion To Foreign-Sounding Names Cost Him Delegates | FiveThirtyEight

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