Speaker analyzes discrimination in business
By Allison Sundaram
Discrimination in business is often caused by subconscious biases and stereotypes, Bryan Ford said Tuesday as part of the Center for Multicultural Learning's "Intercultural Speaker Series."
A Stanford Law School graduate, former professor at Santa Clara's School of Law and University of California at Berkeley, Ford was an outside monitor who worked to combat discrimination against customers at various Denny's Restaurants as part of a class-action lawsuit settlement.
Ford was chosen to run the diversity training because of his business law experience. His mission was to train employees, test restaurants, monitor advertising and investigate complaints. The job also allowed Ford to find out why the problem wasn't going away.
According to Ford, although the popular belief is that discrimination is practiced by "dyed-in-the- wool" racists, his experience was quite different, working with the cross-section of America which makes up most of Dennys' 50,000-strong workforce.
"I got to talk to a couple of servers, one of whom told me the most heartbreaking story about going to her wedding and having some of her aunt and uncles ask, in essence: didn't we teach you better than to behave like that? And she wanted to say, but wait, wait, I'm not doing anything," Ford said.
Ford asserted that there was a cognitive basis for the bias of Denny's employees against different types of patrons, based on the shortcuts of thought which people use for everyday activities.
He said pre-existing biases cause people to see the world through a filter, but they are unaware of the filter because it allows them to ignore ideas or facts contrary to a set world view, creating stereotypes.
According to Ford, the stereotypes in the Denny's case was not the race of a customer, but the ideas of who will tip, who is dangerous and who will make life unpleasant in the restaurant. Ford queried employees who would describe cases which seemed discriminatory, but to the employee, were not.
Ford's solution was to implement simple solutions based on human behaviors, such as hiring a security guard on Saturday nights to make employees feel safer, or installing an employee at the front of the restaurant to prevent people from walking out without paying for their meal.
He felt that through simple solutions and training on diversity sensitivity, companies could not only be more welcoming to their customers but also increase their earning power.
"I think the image that people are being motivated by ill will and hatred, it's fundamentally misleading and misguided," Ford said. "Far more likely, people who intend good things, who are operating with cognitive biases that get in the way, are producing bad outcomes."
Contact Allison Sundaram at (408) 554-4546 or asundaram@scu.edu.