Testing for Discrimination; The Case for A National Report Card By Michael Fix & Margery Austin Turner Despite the fact that minorities have made substantial economic and social progress over the past 30 years, significant disadvantages based on race persist within the United States and serve as markers of continuing policy failures. A body of empirical and anecdotal evidence indicates that discrimination based on race and ethnicity has yet to be eliminated by the nation's civil rights laws. For example: The hourly earnings of black men are 65 percent those of white men, Black men pay more than $1000 more for the same new car as white men, Deep disparities persist in the receipt of state and local contracts for all minority groups; Schools and neighborhoods are becoming more not less segregated in the 21st century. Why Testing Is Needed While these statistics suggest the persistence of racial and ethnic discrimination, they do not, in and of themselves, help us gauge its extent with any accuracy. in other words, disparity of results does not prove discrimination. The absence of understandable and compelling information about the extent of discrimination in our society contributes to sharp differences in the way groups interpret patterns of inequality and the obligation of government to alter them. So while 60 percent of whites think conditions for blacks have improved during the past few years, only 35 percent of blacks share those views. Indeed, it is probably fair to say that beneath many of the current controversies about race and ethnicity in the United States lurk fundamental differences of perception about the empirical reality: To what extent are racial and ethnic minorities subject to discrimination? It is not surprising that there is so little social consensus over the contribution of discrimination to social inequality. As Peter Siegelman notes, blatant Jim Crow discrimination is largely a thing of the past and the so-called have-a-nice-day discrimination-to the extent that it exists-is harder to detect, measure, and ultimately counteract. At the same time, progress toward integration paradoxically may mask an overall decline in discrimination, as the noted scholar Orlando Patterson argues. That is, increased interaction between members of differing racial or ethnic groups may lead to greater friction and more perceived acts of discrimination-despite the fact that the broader trend may be toward less discrimination and fewer discriminators. Thus, while "have-a-nice-day" discrimination may lead to premature claims that we have achieved a color-blind society, conflicts associated with progress towards integration may generate exaggerated claims of victimization. Both types of distortion, along with the misguided policies that flow from them, can be corrected by more accurate and widely understandable measures of discrimination. Evidence of discrimination has come from several sources, including analysis of aggregate employment, housing, and other data sets. While the statistical techniques employed in these analyses have much to offer, they fail to provide the clear, direct measures and narrative power offered by paired testing. In a paired test, two individuals are matched for an relevant characteristics other than the one that is expected to lead to discrimination. The testers apply for a job, an apartment or some other good and the outcomes and treatment they receive are closely monitored. Paired testing is an excellent vehicle for understanding and measuring actual discrimination (understood here simply as the practice of treating people differently because of their membership in a protected group). First, testing provides a feasible method for directly observing discriminatory treatment by comparing two people equally qualified for the transaction in question, who differ significantly only in their group membership. In technical terms, paired testing design minimizes committed variable bias"- the possibility that differences in outcome are caused by variables that the researcher cannot observe. Second, paired testing can allow researchers to observe many types of agent behavior and the conditions under which they occur and therefore to determine if different agents discriminate in different ways on different occasions. Such "race-plus discrimination" occurs if black and white customers who, in the normal course of events might be treated equally, receive disparate treatment when something goes awry: for example, when a diner complains about a restaurant's service. Existing evidence suggests that discrimination comes in interwoven and multifaceted forms; no other research method could discern such patterns. Third, as economist Mark Bendick writes, "In a world in which stories have more power than studies, testing generates studies that are stories." Anyone can imagine what it would be like to be treated the way testers in a protected class are treated, and anyone can understand why differences in treatment between equally qualified testers constitute discrimination. The narrative power offered by paired testing may provide a persuasive impetus to more aggressively enforce, or more precisely target, existing civil rights laws. Testing: Experience to Date Housing and employment are two areas where paired testing has been particularly when developed by researchers and practitioners. HUD has twice launched national paired testing studies to measure the national incidence of discrimination in housing rentals and sales transactions. The first of these stud is-the Housing Market Practices Study (HMPS) - was completed in 1977. It involved more than 3,200 paired tests of discrimination against African Americans in the rental and sales markets of 40 major metropolitan areas. The HMPS sites were randomly selected to be nationally representative of large urban areas, and samples of advertised rental and sales units were randomly selected from major newspapers in each site. The HMPS found evidence of significant discrimination against blacks in both the sales and rental markets. A follow-up testing study in Dallas found high levels of discrimination against Hispanics, particularly those with dark skin. The HMPS report showed that paired testing is an appropriate and feasible method for studying discrimination in housing. Indeed, the strong HMPS results played a major role, albeit after a nine-year lag, in the passage of the 1988 amendments to the Fair Housing Act. In 1987, HUD built upon the HMPS experience by launching a second national audit study-the Housing Discrimination Study (HDS). This study involved 3,800 paired tests for discrimination against African Americans and Hispanic Americans. Again, both rental and sales markets were tested in a random sample of 25 major metropolitan areas. Black-white tests were conducted in 20 of these sites and Hispanic-Anglo tests were conducted in 13 sites. The HDS methodology also involved expanded sample sizes in five metropolitan areas, which supported in-depth analysis of variations in patterns of discrimination within urban areas. According to the HDS study, black renters face a 10.7 percent chance of being excluded altogether from housing made available to comparable white renters and a 23.5 percent chance of learning about fewer apartments. Real estate brokers also are much more likely to offer financial advice to white than to black customers. HDS analysts also constructed a type of index that counts the number of times a black or Hispanic tester is treated less favorably than is his or her white teammate. The index reveals that, on average, black home buyers can expect to encounter about one act of discrimination each time they visit a real estate broker and that Hispanics can expect to receive discriminatory treatment at some point in more than half their visits. Unfortunately, housing discrimination does not appear to be declining. A comparison of the 1989 HDS results with those of the 1977 HMPS finds no clear evidence of a trend in either direction. Nor do preliminary comparisons with five studies conducted in the 1990s. Overall, as economist John Yinger has concluded, "this research demonstrates that black and Hispanic home seekers continue to encounter discrimination in many aspects of a housing transaction. They are told about fewer available units and must put forth considerably more effort to obtain information and to complete a transaction. These barriers are not absolute, but they impose significant costs on black and Hispanic home seekers relative to comparable whites in the form of higher search costs, poorer housing outcomes, or both." Rigorous and reliable testing methods have also been developed to measure discrimination in other domains-for example, hiring decisions for entry-level job openings. The first systematic application of paired testing to hiring, conducted in 1989, focused on discrimination against Hispanic men applying for entry-level jobs in Chicago and San Diego. In each of these sites, approximately 150 paired tests were conducted, based on random samples of job openings advertised in the major metropolitan newspapers. A similar study of hiring discrimination against African American men was conducted a year later in Chicago and Washington, D.C. Again, about 200 paired tests were conducted in each metro area, based on random samples of advertised job openings. Two hundred and eighty-five paired tests of discrimination against both Hispanic and African American men were conducted in Denver at about the same time. Pioneering efforts by both researchers and practitioners have explored the applicability of paired testing to a number of other areas: taxicab service, car sales, access to health club membership, access to property insurance and mortgage lending. The results have been published elsewhere and continue to receive scholarly scrutiny. More importantly, however, these testing studies (as well as enforcement tests conducted by advocacy and regulatory organizations have produced an accepted and credible methodology to test for discrimination. Despite this signal achievement, testing studies in areas other than housing have only been sporadically mounted over the past two decades, and efforts to measure discrimination, both in and outside government, have been largely haphazard and infrequent. Indeed, one might argue that we know far less about the effectiveness of the nation's civil rights laws than we do about the effectiveness of laws intended to combat pollution or reduce tax non-compliance because the tools that have been developed to measure the problem-and therefore direct the location, type, and intensity of enforcement-are that much less sophisticated. Testing as the Basis for a National Report Card on Discrimination Paired testing has its limits. it can be costly, time-consuming, and logistically complex when implemented on a large scale. Testing may not be applicable to complex transactions in which a very large number of individual attributes are relevant to an outcome. Nor can it be easily implemented in situations that may require testers to violate the law; for example, in filing false information on a mortgage application. But properly used, testing can form the core of a much-needed ,report card" on the extent, nature, and intensity of discrimination in America. Such a report card could significantly contribute to the nation's ongoing conversation on race and ethnicity, in several ways: Guiding Civil Rights Enforcement Policy The absence of direct, longitudinal measures of discrimination means that policy makers often do not know where discrimination is most commonly encountered and how successful anti-discrimination interventions have been. Many of the measures that have been heavily relied upon to identify problem areas and to evaluate interventions, such as court filings or enforcement actions, are imperfect guides to action. This owes in part to the fact that discrimination has historically led to low levels of legal actions and to the selectivity inherent in such measures. Further, this tighter linking of enforcement activities to compliance results responds to the imperatives of the Government Performance and Results Act. By systematically assembling longitudinal data on a random sample of firms, sectors, and geographic regions, and noting changes in discrimination levels, a national report card could help civil rights enforcement agencies rationalize their budgeting and targeting efforts. The report card could also help these agencies evaluate their performance and generate support for shifting resources to differing enforcement initiatives. The need for effective anti- discrimination enforcement has risen in an era in which the scope of affirmative action policies has been circumscribed in several important fields, particularly government contracting and-in Texas and California-higher education. This retreat from affirmative action should increase the pressure that policymakers feel to ensure that people are treated as equals across sectors of economic life and that anti-discrimination policies are adequately funded and strategically targeted. Monitoring Discrimination That Defeats Other Social Goals Other policy goals also dictate that discrimination be monitored. Welfare reform, for example, is spurring the entry of a new cohort of low-wage, low-skilled workers into the labor force. Most of the new entrants are women; many are members of racial and ethnic minorities. The success of the policies designed to promote welfare-to-work transitions is premised upon low barriers to labor force entry, including low levels of workplace discrimination. Similarly, U.S. housing policy has historically supported and encouraged the expansion of homeownership opportunities as a means toward individual wealth accumulation, neighborhood revitalization, and social cohesion. Clearly, discrimination in home sales transactions, mortgage lending, and property insurance would undermine continued gains in homeownership nationwide. Progress on other widely shared policy goals, such as assimilation of new immigrants and productive employment of young people who are at high-risk of involvement in crime and violence, also depends upon the sustained reduction of discrimination based on race and ethnicity. Understanding the implications of Increasing Diversity for Patterns of Discrimination Confusion over the contribution of discrimination to inequality is not restricted to debates centered on African Americans. High sustained levels of immigration, dominated by non-European countries, have dramatically expanded and diversified the populations that are perceived as racial and ethnic minorities in the United States. By the year 2040, about 40 percent of the population will consist of racial and ethnic minorities, with blacks constituting less than one third of the minority population. The breakdown of a black/white racial paradigm complicates any easy understanding of the ways in which discrimination operates within society, who practices it, who its victims are, and the protections that government should provide. One issue that high levels of immigration from non-European countries presents is whether new non-white immigrants and other ethnic minorities will be subjected to discrimination in housing, employment, and other domains of daily life. In fact, recent analyses of immigrant integration routinely ascribe the differentiated or "segmented" assimilation of some groups at least in part to discrimination. Moreover, housing and employment audits carried out by the Urban Institute and the Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington provide some direct evidence to support their claims, although studies conducted to date have focused on Latinos and not immigrants, per se. At the same time, congressional concerns about illegal immigration have led to the imposition of broad new restrictions on employment and services to illegal immigrants that may be inducing increased discrimination against foreign looking minorities. Specifically, some employers report they have chosen to hire only U.S. citizens. Employers have also mistakenly and illegally required that non-citizens present a 'green card" before they can be hired, despite the fact that they must accept other types of identity documents, as well. Developing a Comprehensive Portrait of Discrimination A report card on discrimination could play a vital public education function by simultaneously examining discrimination across several key areas of economic life (such as housing, employment, public accommodations) within specific communities. This comprehensive approach could serve a public education function by painting a more complete and powerful portrait of the role that discrimination plays in daily life than studies that touch on a single area of economic activity, and might consequently help build public support for targeted anti-discrimination enforcement activities. This multi-point examination of discrimination should also help policymakers identify communities and populations where discrimination occurs across sectors. It could be useful, then, in obtaining greater cross-agency cooperation in law enforcement. Discrimination against Whom? - by Whom? The United States is becoming increasingly diverse, and African Americans arc not the only racial or ethnic group to experience discrimination. Therefore, the national report card should not focus exclusively on discrimination against African Americans. However, not every ethnic group faces persistent barriers to opportunity and upward mobility. And it would not be feasible to measure the incidence of discrimination experienced by every racial or ethnic minority group in the U.S. Therefore, the report card should focus on discrimination against a limited number of racial and ethnic minorities, selected on the basis of evidence of past discrimination, persistent inequality, or institutional pressures which may lead to discrimination in the future. Finally, as the country's demographic makeup shifts, racial and ethnic minority groups may not just be the victims of discrimination, but will be its perpetrators. A recent Los Angeles survey reveals that Asians and Latinos hold more negative views of African Americans than do whites. in sum, a national report card structured around the methodology of paired testing would be valuable in an era in which patterns of inequality continue to follow racial and ethnic lines, public opinion is widely divided on the contribution of discrimination to these uneven outcomes, and the scope of affirmative action is being circumscribed. The report card could help target the enforcement efforts of civil rights agencies and align them with the dictates of the Government Performance and Results Act. It could help policymakers assess the degree to which discrimination might be serving as a barrier to the achievement of other policy goals, specifically reducing barriers to work for welfare recipients or reducing the number of young people at high-risk of involvement in crime. It could monitor the evolution of prejudice as the nation becomes increasingly diverse racially and ethnically. Most importantly, it could serve as a compelling, factual baseline for a national conversation on race, helping to avoid misguided policies that flow from premature claims of the advent of a colorblind society or unsupported victim-claiming. Michael Fix, an attorney, is the Director of the Immigration Studies Program at the Urban Institute and the author or editor of numerous works, including Clear and Convincing Evidence: Testing for Discrimination in America (1993). Margery Austin Turner directs the Metropolitan Housing and Communities Policy Center at the Urban Institute, where her research focuses on spatial and racial dimensions of anti-poverty policies. A complete version of the report on which this article is based, including citations, can be obtained at the following web address: www. urbaninstitute.org.

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