A Black man has filed an employment discrimination lawsuit against a hotel in Detroit, Michigan, alleging the hotel only offered him a job interview after he changed the name on his resume, according to a copy of the lawsuit obtained by CNN.
Dwight Jackson filed the lawsuit against the Shinola Hotel on July 3, alleging he was denied a job when he applied as “Dwight Jackson,” but later offered an interview when he changed his name to “John Jebrowski.”
The lawsuit alleges Jackson was denied a job in “violation of Michigan Elliott Larsen Civil Rights Act.”
Is ‘Dwight Jackson’ a black sounding name? I’d have assumed the person was white if I’d read that name.
Dwight not so much, but Jackson, yes.
To the point that “Jackson” became jazz/jive-era slang that was the equivalent of “hey, what’s up?” when black people who used that slang were talking to each other.
It’s also an extremely common surname for those of English/Scottish/Irish descent. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackson_(name)
I’d be more willing to buy that they looked him up on social media and didn’t like what they saw. Whether or not that was his profile picture (race), or something he posted, is something I can’t answer.
But the name alone isn’t something I’d believe.
Agreed, it may just be a case of they weren’t hiring but then they were or the first resume was lost or a different manager looked at the resume. There are so many reasons what it could be that it shouldn’t be assumed race was a factor unless the hotel specifically said so.
Edit: reading the article I can see the guy applied many times before changing his name. I am slightly more convinced it was based on his name but it could still be they weren’t hiring but then they were. Or maybe they just wanted to meet the guy with such an awesome sounding name “Jabroski” sounds like something you would say in the 90s when Pauly Shore was popular. Memorable names stand out and make an impression.
these, among others, are the reasons why i didn’t take the same action when i resubmitted my resume under a very WASPy sounding name and the desire gets re-ignited every time i get an interview request after re-submitting my resume the same day my original resume was rejected.
Over 50% of the people with that surname are Black.
https://discover.23andme.com/last-name/Jackson
That’s nationally too. So in a place like Detroit with a large Black population, I feel like people would assume Dwight Jackson was Black.
Also need to take location into account here. Detroit is 77% black Seems it would be pretty easy to show discrimination is there is a hotel in Detroit that is lacking in black employees.
