Using Statistics
(John Speaking)

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I agree that some of what you're saying is true, Fred. But what about Malik's point? We have laws on the books that ban racial discrimination. How are we to know whether those laws are being obeyed if we don't use statistics to flag possible offenders to be investigated? We can't monitor everybody.

People who apply for jobs (or to schools) have no way to know whether they have been discriminated against. Saying that they can bring suit if they are discriminated against doesn't help. They don't have any information. Almost the entire hiring process is private.

If we have a law, I think we need to use the numbers to help enforce it. If that creates problems, we can work on them too.

I want to make another point that I think may help us. Fred wants color-blindness and Malik doesn't think we can rely on that approach, partly because the world isn't color-blind and partly because we have too much to make up for. But we haven't asked ourselves what counts as a color-blind policy. Fred is thinking of policies that do not make any EXPLICIT reference to race or color. That's a big step forward from the old days when companies like Duke Power obviously considered color when they hired people. But my question is whether there may be other, more subtle ways in which policies can violate the spirit of color-blindness?
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