The FAA’s Hiring Scandal

There's a simple fix to removing discrimination in hiring practices that no one seems to notice. Remove all demographic questions from the application. Hide the name and gender and attach a applicant ID. It's as easy as that. Every job should be looking for the most qualified individual regardless of race, nationality, religion, and sex. Demographics in the application are a recipe for disaster on both sides of the isle.

Everything is easy until you account for the real world.

A disabled person who has to request accommodations for the application process will immediately be outed for having a disability. The same applies for people who speak different languages.

Beyond that, the application is only one place in which discrimination occurs.

- It also happens during interviews which are much harder to anonymize. - It also happens in testing and requirements that, while not directly correlated to job performance, do serve to select specific candidates. - It also happens on the job, which can lead to a field of work not seeming like a safe option for some people. - It also happens in education, which can prevent capable people from becoming qualified.

Lowering the bar is not the right answer (unless it is artificially high) but neither is pretending that an anonymous resume will fix everything.