Let’s play some DE&I trivia! As many of you know, the landmark case in employment discrimination is Griggs v. Duke Power. But, what was the aspect of Duke Power’s hiring that got them into court?
If you said their use of pre-employment tests, you’d only be partially right. The decision was also based on the use of discriminatory educational requirements (in this instance, a high school diploma). Interestingly, after that tests got a bad name, but companies continued to use school credentials with little or no problem.
As the US economy and culture pushed more and more students towards college, racial disparities in educational attainment have persisted. Yet, companies rarely questioned whether asking for high school or college degrees for certain jobs really gets them better candidates. In some cases, this requirement is a classic “like me” bias?
Of course, the only way to see if a high school or college degree is necessary for a job is to conduct a job analysis and compare that knowledge, skills, and abilities with a high school or college curriculum. Yes, I want my surgeon to have an MD, thank you very much. Far too often companies have used degrees as a de facto job requirement without ever thinking about its impact on organizational performance (are we turning away qualified people?) or fairness. This is particularly true in IT where there are many self-taught people in the field.
Due to a confluence of factors, some big companies have rethought their use of degrees as qualifications. Besides this leading to potentially more diverse hiring, it will also save them money (but be an economic boom to the new hires). Whether it would lead to less college enrollment and lower higher education costs is certainly possible. More importantly, it would lead to a paradigm shift of associating all white collar jobs with college degrees.
One can argue that getting a college degree shows tenacity and commitment over a long period of time. And I would agree. But, there are other ways to show this as well.
Change only comes when we do things in a different way. And solutions to long term problems often require big actions. Removing high school or college degrees as job qualifications when they are unnecessary removes a significant barrier to employment for racial minorities that could have an impact at your company.