article review

1 Pride and Prejudice: Employment Discrimination against Openly Gay Men What is the research question or purpose of study? The purpose of this study was to provide evidence of the extent/ prevalence of discrimination against gay men in American hiring practices by looking at how employers are influenced by stereotypically make heterosexual traits as well as the intervening impact of local attitudes toward gay men, and the presence of anti-discrimination laws. This emerges as one of the most comprehensive audit studies conducted in the area of employment discrimination against gay men in the United States. The study combined numerous variables and utilizes a wide sample to bring out a clear picture of the status of discrimination in hiring processes with a focus on gay American men. What is the significance of study? The author increases available literature in the understudied area of sexual orientation discrimination in hiring while also advancing the audit methodology. The author notes that while several audit studies have been conducted in the area of sexual orientation discrimination in hiring, these have been limited in scope. First, there has been limited focus on openly gay men and secondly most of the available audit studies have focused on a few cities. The current study is more comprehensive for it covers seven geographically dispersed states that vary significantly in local attitudes towards gay men as well as effectiveness of anti- discrimination laws. While local attitudes favor gay men in some of these states, gayism is condemned in others. Also, while some of the states that were covered in the study have tough anti-discrimination laws that seek to protect openly gay men regardless of local attitudes, other states have lenient anti-discrimination laws that barely protect these openly gay men. This diversity enables the author to effectively study the topic and generate findings that informs future policy making and research. The American constitution seeks to safeguard citizens against all forms of discrimination including sexual discrimination. It is only through research as the present audit study that the changing faces of sexual discrimination can be effectively identified and dealt with using current strategies. Context-what is taking place in organizations or in research relevant to this study? Discrimination against sexual minority groups is a prevalent phenomenon in American hiring practices that has numerous detrimental impacts on affected individuals. A 20 year USA based longitudinal cohort study by Charlton et al that sought to establish if employment discrimination against young bi-sexual and transgender employees established that the existence of employment discrimination reduced the Health Related Quality of Life (HRQL). Notably, he discrimination reduced access to healthcare and insurance (Charlton et al., 2018). A more specific study by Brad et al from the UCLA school of law that examined LGBT People’s Experiences of Workplace Discrimination and Harassment established that about 40% of LGBTQ workers reported some form of discrimination at the workplace. Most of the respodents stated that they were either not hired or were fired upon revelation of their sexual orientation. This study then established that this discrimination and unfair treatment affected overall performance and quality of life for the employees (Brad et al.,2021). The current study is inspired and motivated by this established existence of sexual orientation based discrimination in the work place that continues to affect the American workforce. So what? Why should anyone care? Who should pay attention? methodology? Since there is scientific evidence that sexual orientation driven discrimination is highly prevalent in America and that this phenomenon is detrimental, there is need for action to combat

2 this phenomenon. From a policy perspective, there is need for policy change for the current policy has proven futile in combatting sexual orientation driven discrimination. It is unfortunate that this form of discrimination continues to thrive and expand in the backdrop of increased efforts to combat it. This points to policy ineffectiveness and calls for change in how we approach the issue of sexual equality. Legislators, human rights activists, religious institutions and civil rights movements should take the findings of the current study as a call to action. The author explicitly analyses the relationship between local attitudes, antidiscrimination laws and sexual orientation discrimination and this should be a starting point for policy makers. From a research perspective, the current study significantly expands on the audit methodology. It shows how the methodology can be applied to wider more diverse samples and lays bare some of the strengths and weaknesses of this methodology. Researchers need to consider adopting the audit methodology more for it applies an experimental approach to real world problems. Notable advantages of this approach as outlined by the author include providing more direct evidence on causal impact between variables and greater flexibility. In this study for example the author was able use resumes instead of real auditors. On the flip side, researchers need to be aware of the main pitfall of the audit methodology which is that due to its limited application in previous research its generalizability has not been effectively established. For example, to date no other large scale audit of sexual orientation discrimination has been conducted in the United States and no similar study has been replicated in any other part of the world. Was there one or multiple studies? If multiple studies. Discuss, why additional studies were conducted There was one study in this “correspondence” based audit research. The main advantage with the “correspondence” based approach, as opposed to the “in-person” approach, is better experimental control of variables. With regards to employment for example correspondence such as resumes are less susceptible to bias and discrimination when compared to real applications. Since audit studies are a subset of field experiments a single large scale study often yields adequate results for effective understanding of the phenomenon in context. In this case the researcher settled for a single large scale study because it enabled them to adequately analyze the causal relationship between the variables. Only a single control- signaling sexual orientation- was needed and thus a single study was adequate. Describe the sample? If multiple studies, was the sample the same for all of them? Since the author sought to analyze several aspects of sexual orientation based discrimination, they sampled from job postings. A sample of 3538 job resumes responding to 1769 job postings were sent. Two resumes for each job posting. This sample is comparable to what previous large scale audits used and this indicates that it has adequate statistical power to detect even small disparities. The job postings covered in the sample included 5 occupations and seven states. The essence of limiting the sample to only 5 occupations and 7 states was ensuring that an adequate number of observations were available from each occupation and state to make meaningful comparisons. The sampled states were New York, Pennsylvania, California, & Nevada(Northeast and the West), and Ohio, Florida, Texas(Midwest and the South). The main qualifying criteria for selection was location as indicated above and the presence of a high number of job openings at the time of the study. Secondly, the author considered variance in the tolerance to gayism where the 7 states seem to differ drastically Strict laws prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination in employment exist in California, New York and Nevada and are non-existent in the other 4 states.

4 For researchers the success of this study shows that the audit methodology is viable and capable of guiding useful research. More and more researchers should consider using the methodology.

5 References Brad, S. et al.(2021 ). LGBT People’s Experiences of Workplace Discrimination and Harassment . UCLA school of Law. Retrieved from https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgbt-workplace-discrimination/ Charlton,B. et al.(2018). Sexual orientation-related disparities in employment, health insurance, healthcare access and health-related quality of life: a cohort study of US male and female adolescents and young adults. BMJ Open 8(6): e020418. Tilcsik,A.(2011). Pride and Prejudice: Employment Discrimination against Openly Gay Men in the United States. American Journal of Sociology , 117(2): 586-626