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Full-Text Articles in Business
Race, Dignity, And Commerce, Lu-In Wang
Race, Dignity, And Commerce, Lu-In Wang
Articles
This Essay was written at the invitation of the Journal of Law and Commerce to contribute a piece on racism and commerce—an invitation that was welcome and well timed. It arrived as renewed attention was focused on racialized policing following the killing of George Floyd and in the midst of the worsening pandemic that highlighted unrelenting racial, social, and economic inequities in our society.
The connections between racism and commerce are potentially numerous, but the relationship between discriminatory policing and commerce might not be apparent. This Essay links them through the concept of dignity. Legal scholar John Felipe Acevedo has …
When The Customer Is King: Employment Discrimination As Customer Service, Lu-In Wang
When The Customer Is King: Employment Discrimination As Customer Service, Lu-In Wang
Articles
Employers profit from giving customers opportunities to discriminate against service workers. Employment discrimination law should not, but in many ways does, allow them to get away with it. Employers are driven by self-interest to please customers, whose satisfaction is critical to business success and survival. Pleasing customers often involves cultivating and catering to their discriminatory expectations with respect to customer service — including facilitating customers’ direct discrimination against workers.
Current doctrine allows employers to escape responsibility for customers’ discrimination against workers because it takes an overly narrow view of the employment relationship. The doctrine focuses on the formal lines of …
At The Tipping Point: Race And Gender Discrimination In A Common Economic Transaction, Lu-In Wang
At The Tipping Point: Race And Gender Discrimination In A Common Economic Transaction, Lu-In Wang
Articles
This Article examines the ubiquitous, multibillion dollar practice of tipping as a vehicle for race and gender discrimination by both customers and servers and as a case study of the role that organizations play in producing and promoting unequal treatment. The unique structure of tipped service encounters provides plenty of opportunities and incentives for the two parties to discriminate against one another. Neither customers nor servers are likely to find legal redress for the kinds of discrimination that are most likely to occur in tipped service transactions, however, because many of the same features of the transaction that promote discrimination …
Unwrapping Racial Harassment Law, Pat K. Chew
Unwrapping Racial Harassment Law, Pat K. Chew
Articles
This article is based on a pioneering empirical study of racial harassment in the workplace in which we statistically analyze federal court opinions from 1976 to 2002. Part I offers an overview of racial harassment law and research, noting its common origin with and its close dependence upon sexual harassment legal jurisprudence. In order to put the study's analysis in context, Part I describes the dispute resolution process from which racial harassment cases arise.
Parts II and III present a clear picture of how racial harassment law has played out in the courts - who are the plaintiffs and defendants, …