© Getty Images / Andersen Ross
Recent attempts to address bias and stereotypes - including bias training in the workplace, bias reporting hotlines on campuses, and warnings about bias and racism in movies - are not only ineffective, they make matters worse.
Bias training
creates workplace tensions where they didn't exist, while also
reducing employment opportunities for those it aims to protect. The encouragement of bias reporting on college campuses
restricts free speech, encourages hoaxes, and "institutionalizes surveillance." Movie warnings posted by entertainment companies
condescend to their viewers, treating them like bigots and racists foaming at the mouth at the prospect of seeing outdated depictions of racial and other stereotypes.
Bias TrainingWith revenues of approximately of
$8 billion per year, the bias training industry is big business. Nevertheless, the enterprise has been considered highly ineffective, even
dangerous.
The notion of implicit bias gained currency with the introduction of the
Implicit Association Test that supposedly measures the prevalence of "implicit bias."
But the test has failed to predict racist or other bigoted behavior. Its predictive failure has led scholars to doubt whether implicit bias can even be measured, let alone be correlated with behavior.It is little wonder, then, that workplace bias training has produced such miserable results. Bias training has not only exacerbated workplace tensions, it has even reduced the employment opportunities of those it sought to protect. "That's right,"
remarks Time columnist Joanne Lipman, drawing on studies by Harvard organizational sociology professor Frank Dobbin and others;
"companies that introduced diversity training would actually employ more women and black men today if they had never had diversity training at all."
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