The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Spring 1991: Volume 5, Number 4

Civil Rights Monitor
Spring 1991

• Introduction
• Senate Judiciary Committee Rejects Judge Kenneth Ryskamp
• Supreme Court Rules in Fetal Protection Case
• Supreme Court Accepts Georgia School Desegregation Case
• Supreme Court Accepts Higher Education Desegregation Case
• Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in Voting Rights Cases
• My Mind on Freedom: 40 Years of LCCR

My Mind on Freedom: 40 Years of LCCR

The Leadership Conference on Civil rights has produced a ten-minute video which traces the history of LCCR from 1950 to 1990 against the backdrop of the civil rights movement. The video My Mind on Freedom: 40 Years of LCCR is available for $15.00 prepaid from LCCR, 2027 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, D.C.

The Urban Institute has released a report, Opportunities Denied, Opportunities Diminished: Discrimination in Hiring, which reports on the first major study directly measuring unequal treatment of black and white job -seekers. The report concludes that "when equally qualified young men - one black and the other white - apply for entry-level job openings, the white advances farther in the hiring process one out of every five times." The report contradicts claims that current hiring practices are effectively colorblind or favor black can didates. The study concludes that white applicants do face unfavorable treatment in 7% of job searches, but black applicants experience discriminatory practices almost three times as often. "In Washington, D.C. and Chicago, blacks are denied equal treatment one out of every five times they apply for an entry level position. The lack of fairness in the hiring process helps explain the widening gap between white and black unemploy ment figures." The study is based upon an analysis of 476 hiring audits conducted in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. and Chicago areas during the summer of 1990. Each audit consisted of a pair of young men - one black and the other white - matched in terms of age, physical size, education, experience, apparent energy level, articulateness, and other 'human capital' characteristics. Careful recruitment and training of the audit teams, was understood as Crucial to the validity of the study.