‘Built-in Discrimination,’ LinkedIn Receives Backlash for ‘Diversity in Recruiting’ Feature
Popular professional social media platform LinkedIn, used by employers, recruiters, and job seekers alike, recently received backlash for its “Diversity in Recruiting” or “DIR” feature which “diversifies” the pool of candidates an employer sees.
LinkedIn’s DIR feature takes into account applicants’ race, sexual orientation, and gender or gender identity to “surface qualified members” so that it can “diversify the group of candidates displayed to recruiters.” LinkedIn states that this optional tool is used by “companies that have made public commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Following the Supreme Court’s rejection of the college admission standard, known as affirmative action, which allowed universities to use race as a factor when determining whether or not an applicant will be admitted, The Equal Protection Project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation (EPP) called on LinkedIn to remove the feature.
In a statement to Fox News Digital, Bill Jacobson, president of the EPP said, “The Supreme Court recently held that universities may ‘never use race as a stereotype or negative’ and a ‘student must be treated based on his or her experiences as an individual—not on the basis of race . . . LinkedIn’s filtering of demographic data to manipulate pools of applicants to achieve diversity violates these principles.“
The EPP argues that simply because the recruiter opts to use the DIR feature, and candidates choose to allow LinkedIn to use their demographic information in this way, does not make the standard of excluding some applicants based on race or sexual orientation ethical.
“Some people are promoted to potential employers based on the candidates’ protected status, which runs counter to LinkedIn’s own non-discrimination rules,” Jacobson explained in his statement to Fox News Digital. “What’s worse, candidates may never know how they have been treated in this filtering system based on their protected status, and it’s not even clear if recruiters/employers are aware they are receiving a manipulated pool of candidates.”
Jacobson told Fox News Digital that LinkedIn contains “built-in discrimination” that “operates in the background through algorithms at the LinkedIn hub that connects candidates to recruiters/employers to impact the entire LinkedIn-related hiring process.”
Despite the allegations, a LinkedIn spokesperson said that the company believes “all of our hiring products and algorithms comply with U.S. laws and regulations relating to discrimination on the basis of protected categories. Many hirers use LinkedIn to connect with diverse groups of qualified candidates for their roles.”
In lieu of affirmative action on college campuses, many admissions officers are implementing “adversity scores” to rank candidates based on a “disadvantage scale.” This process may soon be adopted by job recruiters to skirt laws prohibiting discrimination in hiring based on race.
