Two job applicants with compatible credentials, Greg Kelly and Jamal Jones, respond in writing to help-wanted ads in Chicago and Boston. Jamal is 50 percent less likely to be invited for an initial interview because of his stereotypically black-sounding name, according to a recent study by Marianne Bertrand of the University of Chicago and Sendhil Mullainathan of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In a report titled, "The State of the Dream: Enduring Disparities in Black and White," sponsored by the group United for a Fair Economy, discrimination in hiring practices was found to be a significant cause of black unemployment.
The black unemployment rate was more than double the white rate in 2003, 10.8 percent versus 5.2 percent, the study found. This is a wider gap than in 1972, when the percentages were 10.4 and 5.2, respectively.
The report also cited a 2003 Northwestern University study in which sociologist Devah Pager sent white and black men with and without criminal records to job interviews. The study found that white applicants with prison records were more likely to be hired than black applicants without one.
In other areas, the gap between whites and blacks under age 24 is actually decreasing.
The rate of college enrollment increased to 62 percent for blacks in 2002, while the rate for whites was at 79 percent. In 1968 the figures were 38 percent and 53 percent, respectively.
The study also said the rollback of affirmative action would reverse such positive trends in higher education for blacks.
"I think that to the extent that any of those statistics are decreasing, a lot of it has to do with affirmative action," Anthropology Prof. Wende Marshall said. "I know that I owe my college education to affirmative action."
Moreover, there is a large disparity between the salaries of black and white college graduates. Blacks will earn $500,000 less on average during their working years than whites, and black workers with advanced degrees will earn an average of $600,000 less, the study reported.
Marshall said she was not surprised by these findings.
"You can clearly see that there's a vast disparity between the professions of black people and the professions of white people here at the University," Marshall said. "I'm not surprised by it. What would it be if it wasn't discrimination?"
The study also outlined numerous obstacles that may prevent further progress for black students enrolled in college, such as increasing tuition costs and financial aid cuts that make it more difficult for low-income students, disproportionately black, to afford college degrees.
"The educational opportunities available substantially determine [students' later] quality of life," African-American Affairs Dean M. Rick Turner said.
The report also found racial inequities in family income, imprisonment, average wealth and infant mortality to be worse than they were in 1968. Relative progress, however, has been made in poverty, homeownership, education and life expectancy.
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